


Push & Pull

by chellerrific



Series: Girls’ Night Out [3]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: DIY Superheroes, Female Friendship, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 07:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 21,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chellerrific/pseuds/chellerrific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cissie wants an escape from her overbearing mother. She should have known it would never be that easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly I am the only person in the world who cares about this but just in case: nowadays Star City and Gateway City are portrayed as being in the San Francisco Bay area of northern California. The fact that Star City timestamps on the show are given in Pacific time indicates it’s the same in that case. However I’ve put it in the Massachusetts Bay area, where it was some decades ago, for a few reasons, the simplest of which is that it just worked better for my purposes. I’m such a neurotic dork that normally I would never ignore established canon like this and it was actually a really hard decision, but, well, here we are. Hope nobody minds.

**STAR CITY, MASSACHUSETTS  
DECEMBER 2, 19:47 EST**

Bonnie King had the tape measure out. Her daughter Cissie tried not to groan out loud. That was a bad sign.

“Again,” Bonnie said, removing the arrow from the center of the target.

Cissie took aim and fired. Another bull’s-eye.

Bonnie measured, then shook her head. “What’s the matter with you today, Suzanne? You’re pulling to the left.”

The full name. That was an even worse sign.

Without waiting for Bonnie to remove the arrow or give her the go-ahead, Cissie fired again. This arrow stuck just to the right of the previous, so close light could barely fit between the two.

“Better, all though it doesn’t mean much when you have a guide.” Bonnie yanked both arrows out of the target. “Again.”

By the time Bonnie was satisfied, Cissie’s shoulder almost felt dislocated. She knew that it wasn’t—since it had happened to her before, she knew exactly what that felt like—but it still wasn’t very pleasant. Her fingers were stiff as well, though they’d developed tough protective calluses long ago.

She was more relieved than words could say that she would be spending the weekend with her father. Bernell Jones didn’t care if she went two days without practicing gymnastics or judo or ballet or kickboxing or even archery. That was part of why Bonnie had worked her so hard that particular night, despite the fact that Cissie had placed first in a fair contest against over a dozen much older competitors not one week ago: she knew for the next couple of days, Cissie would be “slacking.”

The story as Bonnie always told it went like this: at age three, back when her parents were still together, she had been with them at a party, a small get-together of old friends. She’d watched them play pool and darts all night before they settled in the den to talk. Cissie had then picked up as many darts as she could fit in one chubby hand—three, as it turned out—and threw them at the dart board. All three hit the bull’s-eye. Bonnie told her to do it again. She did it again. And again. And again.

This was a dream come true for Bonnie. Though Bonnie didn’t like to tell this particular story, Cissie knew most of it by now anyway. When Bonnie had been little, her own mother, Cissie’s grandmother Millie, had wanted her to be an Olympic archer. And against all odds, Bonnie had done it, too, winning a bronze medal and everything. But anything that wasn’t gold wasn’t good enough for Millie. Bonnie was never good enough for Millie.

And now Cissie was never good enough for Bonnie. But she was the only daughter she had to live her failed dreams through, so neither of them seemed to have much choice in the matter.

* * *

**DECEMBER 5, 07:37 EST**

The night after Cissie watched her father be saved from certain death at the hands of Black Spider by the timely intervention of Green Arrow and his sidekick, she dreamed about them. Matching green figures, bows drawn, cutting their way down a gauntlet of foes, their trick arrows hitting every mark, their kicks easily taking down anyone still standing after that. Except suddenly the blond at Green Arrow’s side wasn’t the teenage girl from the rooftop; it was Cissie, keeping up shot for shot, kick for kick.

She was smiling. It had to be the first time in at least six years that she’d held a bow in her hand and smiled at the same time without her mother ordering her to.

When she woke up, she lay in bed for a long time, trying to hold onto the unbridled joy she’d felt in that dream. She could hardly remember what it felt like to have fun doing something. Bonnie didn’t care if things were fun or not. In fact, she preferred them not to be. It wasn’t about fun. It was about winning and being perfect.

Finally, she got up and went to the kitchen. Her father was already sitting at the table, drinking a cup of coffee. His face looked drawn and Cissie wondered if he’d slept at all the night before.

“Morning, Daddy,” Cissie said, pulling out the chair and sitting down across from him. “How are you feeling?”

“Good morning, baby girl,” he said, his features brightening up. “I’m fine, thanks to Green Arrow.”

But he clearly wasn’t fine. Something was distracting him.

She noticed a piece of paper clutched in the hand that wasn’t cradling his coffee cup. It looked like a letter. “What’s that?” she asked, nodding at it.

He didn’t answer for a long moment. Cissie thought he wasn’t going to tell her at all, but finally he spoke. “I got this letter yesterday. I was prepared to ignore it mostly because I know your mother will never agree to it, but now I’m starting to reconsider.”

If he was looking for her mother’s approval, that meant the letter had something to do with Cissie. She suddenly felt apprehensive. “What does it say?”

“It’s from a private school in Gateway City called the St. Elias School for Girls,” he said. “It’s very prestigious. They have an opening in their student body, and they want you.”

Cissie blinked. “But the school year’s already started.”

“I know,” Bernell said, “but it says they were full at the start of term and unexpected circumstances have left them room for another student. It says they’ll help you over winter break to get caught up if you decided to come.”

Cissie didn’t know what to say. She watched her father steadily, waiting for him to go on.

“I think you should.”

She bit her lip. “A new school? Now? And Gateway City…”

“There’s something else. It’s a boarding school.”

“A boarding school? You mean… I’d be _living_ there?”

Bernell nodded.

He was right. Her mother would _never_ agree to that.

“If you don’t want to go, just say so. But listen to what I have to say first. Last night really got me thinking. It was bad enough what almost happened… what _did_ happen right in front of you. I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening _to_ you because of the enemies I’ve made through my work. I know you’re with your mother most of the time, but…”

He didn’t have to finish that sentence. Cissie knew exactly what that “but” meant.

“Gateway City’s not _that_ far,” he went on. “We’ll be able to see you whenever you need us.”

“And Mom…?”

“Don’t worry about her. Just tell me if you want to go or not. I’ll take care of everything else.”

Cissie thought about it. If she lived at school, she could be free of her mother. No more ballet. No more kickboxing. No more _anything_.

She looked up at her father. “I want to go.”

Bernell gave her a small smile. “I was hoping you’d say that. I’ll call the school and let them know you’re coming.” He took a deep breath. “And then I’ll call your mother.”

If he was going to do it in that order, he must have been sure he could get Bonnie to consent. How, though, Cissie had absolutely no idea. Still, if anyone could get her implacable mother to bend, it was Bernell Jones.


	2. First Impressions

**GATEWAY CITY, MASSACHUSETTS  
DECEMBER 10, 08:21 EST**

St. Elias was a sprawling complex of buildings covered in ivy, the signs proudly proclaiming that it was established in 1797. It was populated by girls ages 11 to 18, though that was impossible to tell from outside; it was sunny but cold, not to mention early on a Saturday morning, and Cissie guessed that everyone would be hibernating under warm blankets inside.

“Hello, you must be Suzanne,” a petite woman with halo of curly black hair and a clipboard said, approaching them. “And Suzanne’s parents, Mr. and Mrs.—”

“ _Ms_. King,” Bonnie said, lighting up a cigarette.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but—”

“No big.” Bonnie waved out the match and took a puff.

“No, I mean, I was going to say, you can’t smoke that on campus.”

Bonnie gave her a reproachful look and Cissie cringed, sure her mother was going to make a scene. Instead, though, Bonnie took the cigarette from her lips and crushed it under her heel.

Cissie quietly let out her breath.

“Thank you. I’m Hildy Park, personal assistant to the headmistress,” the woman went on, smiling warmly at them all. She must have had a lot of experience dealing with people even worse than Bonnie, Cissie decided. “We’re _so_ happy to have Suzanne join us for the new term.”

“Yes, well, that makes two of you,” Bonnie said, shooting Bernell a pointed look.

Bernell gave a small beleaguered sigh, then tried to return Ms. Park’s smile. “Thank you for taking her. We’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about your school and know Cissie will do very well here.”

“We certainly hope she will. I’ll give you time to say your goodbyes and then I’ll take you to meet the headmistress and your new roommate, okay?”

Bernell gave Cissie a tight hug. “You’ll be home in two weeks for Christmas. And remember, you can call us any time you need us.”

Bonnie stood apart, arms folded over her chest, making clear her disdain for the entire situation.

“’Bye, Mom,” Cissie said carefully.

“Huh,” Bonnie grunted in response.

Cissie gave up. “’Bye, Daddy. I’ll miss you.”

He smoothed her hair. “Miss you too, baby girl. Have fun and be good, okay?”

Cissie nodded, then, clutching her smallest suitcase, she followed Hildy Park inside.

Other than new coats of paint and paper and whatever repairs might have been necessary, Cissie got the feeling that like the outside, the inside hadn’t changed much since 1797. When Ms. Park led her up the wooden staircase, every step creaked. She figured that was probably handy in a school full of teenage girls—hard to do much sneaking about. Even the doorways looked shorter than she was used to, though as she was an eleven-year-old girl, this didn’t have much of an impact on her.

At the end of the hallway were a pair of large double doors with an elegant plaque inscribed only with _HEADMISTRESS_. Ms. Park knocked twice gently.

“Come in,” called a rich, throaty voice from the other side.

Ms. Park pushed open the doors and led Cissie inside. “Suzanne King-Jones is here, Miss Jeannette.”

“Thank you, Hildy.”

Ms. Park left, shutting the doors behind her.

In front of Cissie was a huge antique wooden desk. Behind the desk sat a woman she could tell was tall even seated. Though the woman’s fair, relatively unlined face suggested she was not that old—thirties or perhaps forties at most—the ringlets that framed it were snow white. The effect was striking, and she would have been striking enough otherwise. Her iron gray eyes regarded Cissie carefully. When she spoke, it was with a light accent Cissie didn’t recognize—something European, maybe German; Cissie wasn’t exactly an expert.

“Suzanne King-Jones. You are eleven, correct?”

Cissie nodded. “Twelve in May.”

The woman gave her a soft smile. “Of course. I am the headmistress here at St. Elias, Jeannette Hoffman. Everyone calls me Miss Jeannette. I invite you to do the same as well.”

“Everyone calls me Cissie,” Cissie said. “Usually.”

“Very well, Cissie. It is a pleasure to meet you. You are a very accomplished young girl.”

Cissie wasn’t too sure what she was supposed to say to that, so she just nodded. She didn’t really _feel_ very “accomplished,” though she was aware that objectively, she could do quite a lot for a girl of eleven. Her mother had made sure of that.

“You will feel right at home here at St. Elias. I am sure you will make many friends in no time at all.”

Cissie was less sure about that. It wasn’t that she was bad at making friends—the opposite, really. She just wasn’t that good at making _girl_ friends. Her friends at her old schools, for whatever reasons, had usually been boys. But she had known coming into this that the St. Elias School for Girls was, well, a school for girls, and she’d chosen to come anyway.

“Would you like to meet your roommate?” Miss Jeannette asked.

Cissie nodded. She was going to have to eventually.

“Wonderful.” Miss Jeannette pushed a button on a machine on her desk and said, “Hildy, will you please send in Miss Sutton?”

The doors opened again and Ms. Park ushered in another girl, of an age with Cissie. She had dark hair that was short and a little unkempt, brown skin, and beautiful hazel eyes. For some reason, Cissie disliked her immediately. Cissie tended to dislike other girls immediately, and they tended not to change that impression over time.

“Cissie, this is Traya Sutton,” Miss Jeannette said. “She is from Bialya. Traya, your new roommate, Cissie King-Jones.”

“I’m happy to meet you,” Traya said, seeming genuine. She spoke with no Bialyan accent, so wherever she was from, she must have been living in the States for most of her short life.

“Mmhmm,” Cissie said noncommittally.

Traya’s smile faded somewhat. “I hope we can be… friends…”

“Traya, why don’t you show Cissie to your room?” Miss Jeannette suggested gently.

“Of course,” said Traya. “It’s this way.”

Cissie followed Traya down the hall and up another creaky flight of stairs, paying attention to everything but the back of the girl walking in front of her. The gray-green wallpaper was patterned with fleurs-de-lis. There were portraits of girls and women hung on the walls. The plaques underneath all had names and notations like _Class of 1834, Abolitionist and Author_ , _Class of 1908, Ballets Russes Member_ , and _Class of 1969, NASA Physicist and Astronaut_.

Cissie wondered if she’d ever have her portrait up there, and if so, what it would say— _Class of 2018, Judo Archer_?

Traya stopped outside a small door. Unlike the other doors, there was only one plaque next to it, with Traya’s name on it.

“They’ll have yours up soon, I’m sure,” Traya said, noticing where Cissie was looking. “Anyway, here we are.” She pushed open the door.

The room inside was not very large—not much bigger than Cissie’s room at home, but with twice as many people living in it. Either side of the room looked to have started out as a mirror image of the other: same twin bed, same desk, same wardrobe. It was easy to tell which side Traya had claimed for herself, though, since the half farthest from the door, closest to the window, was covered in her belongings. Her bed was neatly-made with a red comforter, a large calendar of cute kittens dominated one wall, the desk was covered in textbooks, papers, and a shiny red laptop that made Cissie’s old computer look even more beat-up than it already was, and the window had a sheer red valance over the standard gray-green curtains.

 _Let me guess: your favorite color is red_ , Cissie didn’t say.

“I hope you don’t mind that side of the room,” Traya said somewhat self-consciously.

Of course the side nearer the window was better, so obviously Traya would have staked it out for herself. Cissie shrugged. “Doesn’t matter,” she said.

Her other luggage had been brought up, presumably when she was talking to Miss Jeannette. She laid her smallest suitcase on her bed and opened it to start unpacking.

“Okay,” said Traya. “If you have any questions about anything, you can ask me. About anything, really.”

Cissie glanced around. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Oh!” Traya hurried over to the door and opened it again. “There’s one down at either end of the hall. Most of us, I’ve noticed, usually take showers in the afternoons or evenings, so if you’re an early riser, that’ll be… an advantage for you.”

Cissie poked her head out the door and looked where Traya was pointing.

“Thanks,” Cissie said automatically.

Traya grinned. “No prob. Anything else at all, you can ask me. I mean it.”

Cissie was stepping back into the room when something down the hall caught her attention. She turned to look. At the end of a hall was a girl. She was a little older, maybe thirteen or fourteen. She had ash-blond hair and skin so white it looked like she’d never seen the sun a day in her life.

And she was staring right at Cissie.

Cissie stared back, frowning.

“Something the matter?” Traya asked.

In the split-second Cissie turned to glance at Traya, the girl in the hall disappeared.

“No,” said Cissie. “There was just someone walking around.”

“Oh, really? Maybe I can introduce you.” Traya stuck her head back out into the hall.

“She already left,” Cissie said.

“Oh. What did she look like?”

Cissie briefly described the girl.

Traya tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Hmm… maybe Jesse, all though she’s not _that_ pale. Ah well.” She waved a hand. “You’ll have plenty of time to meet everyone. You’re staying over break, right?”

“Mm,” Cissie said with a nod, turning back to her suitcase.

“Not too many people stay, so that’ll be a good chance for you to get to know the few who do,” said Traya.

Cissie’s mind was already drifting back to the girl in the hall. The way she’d been looking at her was really unsettling. Cissie hoped she wasn’t already being singled out by St. Elias’s Mean Girls. Being the new girl made her an easy target, she knew.

She turned to pick up the next suitcase set along the wall, but as soon as she saw what it was, she stopped and let out a heavy sigh.

“What? What’s the matter?” Traya asked, eager to be of service.

“Nothing,” said Cissie, picking up the suitcase. It was her archery case. She had deliberately not brought that with her. But even miles away, her mother was still trying to exert her control. The message was clear: _don’t stop practicing_.

Unbidden, the image of Green Arrow on the roof saving her father’s life flashed before Cissie’s eyes. Well, maybe she _would_ keep it up.

But _not_ because Bonnie wanted her to.


	3. Visitor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Silly meee, I incorrectly referred to Cissie as using a compound bow. As a prospective Olympian, she would have learned recurve archery. My bad!

**DECEMBER 12, 13:35 EST**

The archery instructor at St. Elias introduced herself as Sasha Doi. She was a petite Japanese woman with a look that made plain the fact that she never exaggerated or bluffed. While Cissie assembled her bow and nocked an arrow, Ms. Doi watched her every move, not speaking, not correcting, just watching.

Cissie took aim and fired. A perfect bull’s-eye. Hitting a standing target in the center was the most common of Bonnie’s drills—never neglect the basics, she said—but it was far from the most Cissie could do.

“Not bad, for an occidental archer,” Ms. Doi said at length. She picked up her own bow and nocked an arrow. Cissie watched the graceful sweep of her arm, so different from how she’d been taught; when Ms. Doi’s sleeve slid up a little, Cissie saw a red shape like a dragon snaking its way up her left arm. Then Ms. Doi let the arrow fly. It split Cissie’s down the center of the shaft, banana-peeling it all the way to the target.

Cissie stared. “I thought that was impossible,” she said. It had to be, otherwise Bonnie would have made her do it.

“Maybe for you,” said Ms. Doi. “Lesson number one: there is always someone who can do what you can do but better.”

Cissie just stared blankly at what was left of her arrow. Ms. Doi’s bow was enormous compared to Cissie’s, some kind of longbow, and she had drawn it differently—instead of stopping at her cheek, she’d pulled it all the way back past her ear. Maybe that was what had made the difference?

Cissie would have to restring her bow to get it back that far. She could hardly tolerate the idea that for the last eight years she had been getting drilled in the _wrong_ way of doing things.

“Stop,” said Ms. Doi. “What are you doing?”

“Restringing my bow,” Cissie said. “It’s too tight to—”

“Lesson number two: thoughtlessly aping others will serve no purpose other than to emphasize your relative inferiority. When I teach girls who have never held a bow in their life, I train them as _kyudoka_ —Japanese-style archers. But I’m not teaching you from scratch.” Ms. Doi picked up a smaller recurve bow, one more like Cissie’s, and this time she only drew it back to her cheek. She fired one arrow at a fresh target—bull’s-eye—and then another—splitting the first down the center. “I may prefer one style to the other, but at your level, gratuitous switching because you think you’ve found a shortcut to improvement is only detrimental.”

Cissie took her hand off her string. It was just as well, really. Bonnie would have had kittens if Cissie tried to use the same stance Ms. Doi just had.

 _I’m not doing this for_ her _, remember?_ she chided herself silently.

“Lesson number three: there are no shortcuts. Innate talent will only get you so far. The only true path to improvement is commitment.”

Cissie swallowed a sigh. So much for getting away from Bonnie and having a little fun.

“Remove your glove for a moment, please,” Ms. Doi said.

Cissie did so.

Ms. Doi took her hand and inspected it. “I can see you have more commitment than most girls your age.”

Cissie wanted to explain how Bonnie had specifically made sure she developed those calluses, but it seemed like Ms. Doi had just given her a compliment, so she decided to accept it for what it was.

“Japanese and western aren’t the only styles of archery,” Ms. Doi went on, letting go of her hand. “The archer matters more than the style. I can’t say I wouldn’t like to have been able to mold you from the start, but that’s not what’s important now. I can already tell that you are capable of much more than what I’ve had you show me so far. What else can you do?”

Cissie couldn’t suppress a grin. “Do you have any clay pigeons?”

* * *

**14:48 EST**

Cissie had impressed Ms. Doi with her accuracy, her speed, and her form. She had not impressed Ms. Doi with her ability to hit a clay pigeon in the air immediately after executing a flawless one-handed back spring. Showy and unnecessary, Ms. Doi said. Cissie bit back a retort about that being a bit rich coming from a woman with a red dragon tattoo all the way up one arm.

After the initial annoyance wore off, she realized she was, in truth, surprisingly relieved by this; it would be easy to separate Ms. Doi from Bonnie after all.

When Cissie finally went back upstairs to her room, she knew she had accepted Ms. Doi as her teacher. It didn’t dawn on her until later that perhaps the reverse had been the more important thing.

Traya was nowhere to be seen. Cissie dropped down in her desk chair with a relieved sigh. She had a lot of work to get through if she wanted to catch up to her peers by the time the new term started, and she knew that would be more difficult with Traya hovering over her peppering her with questions about how her first day had gone and if there was anything—really, _really_ , anything at all—Traya could help her with.

A cold breeze ran icy fingers along the back of Cissie’s neck. How could Traya have left the window open? It was the middle of December.

She was halfway to the window before she realized it was already shut.

She spun around. Standing just before her like she’d appeared out of thin air was the girl who’d been watching her from the hall when she’d first arrived. Cissie was positive it was the same girl—same complexion and hair so fair she looked like she’d been bleached. Her green eyes were as pale and luminous as the rest of her. Cissie realized for the first time she wasn’t wearing the St. Elias school uniform. She was, in fact, wearing the same thing she’d been wearing two days before: a white hoodie with draped sleeves over a black undershirt, pale blue-gray leggings, white boots. The whole thing made her look even more washed-out.

“You’re not allowed to come into other people’s rooms without permission,” Cissie said.

The girl didn’t respond, just stared at Cissie like she desperately wanted to tell her something but couldn’t.

“What? What is it?” Cissie was starting to get mad. “You think you’re the first bully I’ve ever had to deal with? You’re not. I can—”

She reached up to give the girl’s shoulder a shove, but where she should have touched solid flesh, her hand met only air.

The girl evaporated like smoke.

There was no one else in the room. Cissie was completely alone.

The door opened and she jumped a mile involuntarily.

“What’s the matter?” Traya asked, bemused at her expression. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”


	4. Reticence

**DECEMBER 13, 01:16 EST**

Cissie had memorized the ceiling of her room ten times over. She couldn’t sleep, but if she got up, she would wake Traya. Still, she wasn’t programmed to do _nothing_. It went against everything she’d ever had drilled in her. Even when she wanted to do nothing, if she wasn’t at least going on a walk or reading or book or _something_ , she felt… wrong.

She’d tossed and turned, drifting in and out of sleep for what seemed like eons—she saw the fluid motion of Ms. Doi’s arm, saw herself in Ms. Doi’s clothes with Ms. Doi’s bow looking exactly like what she was, a child playing at grown-up; she saw the glowing red tip of Bonnie’s cigarette, the stream of demands never slowing around the smoke that puffed out of her like she was an angry chimney, puffed out of her mouth, her ears, her eyes; she saw her father falling, falling, falling forever, and then she was falling, and suddenly, a hand grabbed her arm. It was the ghost-girl, her green eyes sad and urgent, but then her hand turned to smoke, and Cissie was falling again—

When she’d snapped her eyes open, she saw it was only about an hour after she’d gone to bed.

She decided to give up on sleep for the time being.

The girls weren’t supposed to be out of their rooms at this time of night, unless it was to use the bathroom, but the creepy-crawly feeling in Cissie’s legs only got stronger as her ability to care about the rules diminished.

She threw back her blanket and got up, relief at the sensation of being on her feet flooding her instantly. She walked as carefully and quietly as she could to the door, aware of just how creaky St. Elias could be, but she made it out of the room without disturbing Traya. Or if she had disturbed Traya, her roommate was too polite to say so. Honestly, Cissie couldn’t be sure which, and she also couldn’t be sure she cared right then.

The light in the hall was just enough to see by, soft and warm and ever-so-slightly flickering like candlelight. Cissie stopped just outside the door, in front of the nearest portrait. It was a young woman with curly auburn hair and dark green eyes. She was dressed in a smart suit, posing with a microphone, like there was a camera capturing her image rather than a brush on a canvas. _Vesper Fairchild, Class of 1981, News Reporter_.

Cissie felt a wave of homesickness seize her. She’d barely been away three days and already only the hour was stopping her from calling her parents and begging them to come get her. It wasn’t that she didn’t like St. Elias, not really. She was still getting used to things, and she was sure she _could_ like it. But something felt wrong. Off. “A square peg in a round hole,” her father might say.

But Bonnie’s voice was louder in her head, as it always was. _What, you gonna give up already? You haven’t even_ tried _. You’re ridiculous, Suzanne. You’ll never be anything with that attitude._

She knew before she turned that the ghost girl was back, standing just next to her, looking up at Vesper Fairchild’s portrait.

“Who are you?” Cissie whispered. “Do you want something from me?”

The girl opened her mouth to speak. A look of something beyond frustration—almost anguish—passed over her face. Finally, she uttered a single word: “Secret.”

Cissie frowned. Was this a riddle? “I don’t have any secrets,” she said honestly.

The girl shook her head and tried again, but still all she said was, “Secret.”

“You’re not even real,” Cissie hissed. She thrust a hand out towards the girl.

“Who’s not real?”

Cissie spun around. Standing in the hall behind her was the last person she wanted to see at that particular moment: Miss Jeannette.

But the headmistress didn’t look angry or upset. She cocked her head slightly and gave Cissie a look that might have been concern. “Are you unwell?”

Cissie glanced back over her shoulder. She was unsurprised to see no trace left of the ghost-girl. “Yes,” she told Miss Jeannette, and it wasn’t a lie.

The headmistress draped an arm around Cissie’s shoulders, a gesture she recognized as motherly despite the fact that her mother had never done it to her before. “Come on. I have some tea that will settle your stomach and help you sleep.”

She led Cissie downstairs, the two of them moving carefully to reduce the creakiness of the steps. Miss Jeannette steered her all the way to her office, then plopped her down in a chair and began pouring water that was already steaming from a kettle.

Cissie wasn’t really a tea drinker. She was eleven, so she was mostly a juice, water, and occasionally soda drinker. But she wanted this miracle liquid that would make her sleep. And she wanted company—company that could say more than one word, that didn’t appear and disappear in the blink of an eye, that didn’t leave her with the upside-down feeling that they didn’t actually exist.

“Most girls get homesick when they first come here,” Miss Jeannette said, setting down a teacup in front of Cissie before settling back in her chair with one of her own. “It’s very, _very_ common. It’s just that they tend to go through it together. You have the misfortune of coming late, at a time by which most everyone else has managed to settle in, find a rhythm, get used to things. It can compound the issue, make you feel even more isolated.”

“I didn’t say I was homesick,” Cissie said, trying not to fidget.

Miss Jeannette took a sip of her tea, though Cissie could see that it was still steaming. Bonnie was like that, able to take food straight out of the oven and pop it in her mouth without batting an eyelash. She didn’t know how they did it. Probably had already burned away the nerve endings in their mouths. She wouldn’t put it past Bonnie to do something like that.

“You didn’t say it out loud, no.”

Cissie blew away the steam and tried to take a sip of her own. She stopped immediately, before her mouth got too scalded.

“I’ve been around long enough to recognize the signs.” Miss Jeannette’s accent sounded stronger, like the darkness amplified it.

“Where are you from?” Cissie asked before she could stop herself.

But again, Miss Jeannette didn’t seem mad. “Hungary,” she said. “I’ve lived many places in my life, but I was born in Hungary.”

“Oh.” It sounded a lot more interesting than “thirty miles away in Star City.” “Do you miss it?”

She gave a careless half-shrug. “Sometimes. But St. Elias is my home now. You girls are my family. I’m quite content here.”

Cissie was able to get a swallow of tea down. It tasted better than she was expecting, and she took another gulp, even though she was pretty sure gulping wasn’t the way tea was supposed to be drunk.

“I feel better now,” she said after a long silence. She had emptied her small cup without realizing it and her eyelids were starting to droop.

“Good,” said Miss Jeannette. “Go to sleep, Cissie. Let your cares go until the morning. They can wait until then.”

Cissie’s hand went limp. She was asleep before the teacup hit the ground.


	5. Vigor

**DECEMBER 13, 11:07 EST**

Cissie woke up after a long dreamless sleep to late-morning sunlight streaming in through her window. She bounced out of bed, feeling more refreshed than she had in… possibly ever.

Then she saw the time and shrieked.

She got out of her pajamas and into her uniform in record time, running a brush through her blond hair and grabbing whatever books and papers were sitting out before bolting from the room.

About three steps past the door she collided with another solid object and they both went down hard, papers flying everywhere.

“I’m so sorry, I—oh! Dawn! I was just going to look for you!”

The girl she’d literally run into put a hand to her head and glared at Cissie. “I’m not Dawn.”

“You’re British,” Cissie said stupidly.

“Well-spotted.” The girl who looked remarkably like Cissie’s English tutor, Dawn Granger, got to her feet and smoothed out her skirt before tossing her long auburn hair over her shoulder.

The hair really should have been Cissie’s first clue. Dawn kept hers in a short bob. It had been short when Cissie had seen her just the day before, in fact. She felt like an idiot as she scrambled to gather up everything she’d dropped.

“Dawn is probably in the library,” Dawn’s doppelgänger said, carrying on down the hall without even offering Cissie a hand.

Cissie glared at her retreating back, no longer sorry she’d knocked her down in the first place. “Rudeness,” she muttered under her breath as she tried to get her things back in order.

However, her tip about Dawn did prove to be helpful, as Cissie found her sitting at a table in the library, immersed in Sun Tzu.

“Dawn,” Cissie whispered.

Dawn looked up. Her hair was still short and when she spoke, she was still American. “Oh. Hey, Cissie. Feeling better?”

Cissie had her mouth open to make apologies and ask about the girl in the hallway, but she stopped at that. “Huh?”

“Oh, did Miss Jeannette not tell you? She let me know you weren’t feeling well and cancelled the lesson for today.” Dawn set her mouth in a grim line that said she Did Not Approve, but she wasn’t going to comment on Miss Jeannette’s decisions.

“Oh.” Cissie blinked. The same was probably true of all Cissie’s lessons. But could she really afford to skip out on a full day already? “Well, um, if you have time for me, I… am feeling a lot better…” It was true. The thought of taking a day off was unbearable. She was almost bursting with energy and motivation.

Dawn considered her carefully, then pushed _The Art of War_ to the side. “All right. I have a free now anyway since I already finished most of my final projects for the semester.”

“Thank you,” said Cissie, sitting down at the table. “Um, oh yeah… one question… do you have a twin? Who’s British?”

“You met Holly, I see,” Dawn said knowingly. “They say twins raised apart tend to be more similar than twins raised together… well. We do both share a strange affinity for lemon cheesecake, but that’s about it. I’ll just cut to the chase and apologize for whatever she said or did to you. Anyway, let’s talk about the chapters I set you yesterday.”

* * *

**14:29 EST**

The next few hours went by in a blur. Cissie managed to track down each of her tutors and convince them to go over the lesson they had planned despite Miss Jeannette having let her out of them all. She blazed through each one before hurrying off to find the next girl, her mind clear of everything but schoolwork.

At the end of the day she ran down to the archery range, only about an hour late. Her heart sank when she found Ms. Doi was nowhere in sight, though.

“Oh well,” she said with a shrug, her disappointment fading in seconds. She spent the next half hour bouncing around the range by herself, filling everything that even remotely passed for a target with arrows. In spite of Ms. Doi’s feelings about anything “showy and unnecessary,” she performed flips, handsprings, rolls—she even knocked out a target with a solid kick after she hit it with an arrow while in mid-air.

When she finally stopped to catch her breath, it looked like a small localized hurricane had blown through. After it picked up the contents of an archery surplus warehouse anyway.

“Wow!”

Cissie spun around, startled. Traya was watching, her eyes huge. “You’re amazing!” she said.

“How long have you been there?”

“Since about five minutes after you got here,” Traya said. “I didn’t want to interrupt. I was just… checking on you. I tried to wake you up this morning but you were just… _out_. I was a little worried.”

“I’m fine.”

“So I see.” Traya surveyed the archery range, or at least what was left of it. “Wow.”

Cissie began to collect her arrows and set the range back to how she’d found it. She didn’t want to take the chance of what Ms. Doi’s reaction might be if she left it in the state it was in.

Without prompting, Traya began to help.

“You don’t have to…”

“I know I don’t _have_ to,” said Traya, and she left it at that, carrying on without another word.

Cissie shrugged. Less work for her in that case, she supposed.

* * *

**23:36 EST**

The clock said that it was after 11:30 at night. Through the fog of sleep, Cissie realized she couldn’t remember what happened to most of the afternoon.

After she and Traya had finished cleaning, they’d come back upstairs to their room. And then what? Cissie knew she’d meant to work on her homework, but she didn’t have any real recollection of actually doing that.

She sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes to bring them into focus. She was less surprised than she would have expected to see the ghost-girl standing by her desk.

“Hello,” she whispered, because she wasn’t fully awake and it seemed like the right thing to say.

The ghost-girl beckoned to her, then stepped backwards through the door.

“What’s the matter, Lassie?” Cissie muttered, reluctantly getting to her feet. “Did Timmy fall in the well again?”

She stepped out into the hall, shutting the door quietly behind her. The ghost-girl was waiting for her.

“What’s the word of the day this time?”

“Secret,” the ghost-girl said.

“Oh. Same word.”

The ghost-girl took a deep breath—or whatever the ghost equivalent of a deep breath was—and tried again. “Secret…s. Secrets.”

“Secrets. Okay. That clears everything right up.” Cissie’s head felt heavy and she was regretting getting up at all.

But the ghost-girl was delighted. “Secret _s_. Secret _s_.” She hissed the final s, emphasizing its existence as much as she could.

“That’s good to know. Instead of dealing with one mysterious thing, I’m dealing with a bunch of them. Got anything else?”

“Secrets.”

“Obviously. What do they have to do with me? _Do_ they have anything to do with me?”

The ghost-girl nodded. Then she suddenly gasped, or at least made a sound like it, and vanished.

“Wait! Come back,” Cissie hissed. “You can’t just keep popping up when you feel like it and confusing me and then—”

“Cissie, I hope I didn’t give you the impression that it’s acceptable for you to be up and about whenever you like.”

Just as she had been the night before, Miss Jeannette was standing behind her.

“No, I’m sorry,” Cissie said quickly. “I just… was going to use the bathroom.”

“And having a conversation with yourself on the way?”

“Ah… yeah. I guess I was a little jumpy. I’ll try to be quiet from now on.”

Miss Jeannette gave her a small smile. “All right. I know you’re having trouble adjusting but I think you’re doing very well so far, given the circumstances. Be patient. Give it time. And if you find yourself unable to sleep, I’d like you to come see me instead of wandering the halls. All right?”

“Even if it’s the middle of the night?”

“Even then,” said Miss Jeannette. “I always have time for my girls. Do you need to talk about it now?”

Cissie almost accepted, but something made her pause. She didn’t realize until later it was the expression on the ghost-girl’s face before she’d disappeared. “No thank you. I’m all right.”

“That’s good to hear. Use the rest room and then get back to bed, if you please.”

“Yes. I’m sorry. Thank you for the offer. Good night, Miss Jeannette.”

“Don’t let it trouble you, Cissie. Good night. Sleep well.”


	6. Secured

**DECEMBER 16, 15:22 EST**

Most of the girls were eager to get a head-start on their weekends that Friday afternoon. Not Cissie. She knew that old yearbooks were stored in the library. If the ghost-girl was in one of them, she was going to find her.

While each class wasn’t very large, that was still easier said than done with over two centuries of them to go through. Cissie decided to start with the previous year and work her way backwards. The girl’s clothing was hard to pinpoint with much precision, but it looked pretty recent. It definitely wasn’t old-fashioned, and she didn’t think it was much older than maybe the nineties. Still, it was hard to be sure.

She grabbed the ten most recent—they weren’t very large books, so it was a cumbersome stack but not unmanageable—and carefully walked them over to the nearest table.

The few girls in the library with her dwindled as she went from one book to the next. By the time she got to the fourth book, she was alone as far as she could see.

When she got to the fifth, though, she felt that now-familiar cold prickle on the back of her neck.

The ghost-girl was standing beside her.

Cissie looked around, but somehow she already knew that if the ghost-girl was there, no one else was.

She pointed at the stack of books through which she’d already gone halfway. “Are you in here?” she whispered, not wanting to catch the attention of anyone who might still be browsing the stacks.

The ghost-girl shook her head no.

Cissie sighed and flipped the book in front of her closed, flopping back in the chair with her arms over her chest. Well that was an hour of her life she’d never get back.

“Secrets,” the ghost-girl said.

“Yeah, I know. I’m trying to figure some of them out, since you’ve been such a spectacular help and all.”

There was a soft scraping sound. The chair beside Cissie moved—because the ghost-girl was pushing it.

“How are you doing that?” Cissie asked, sitting up in alarm. “I didn’t know ghosts could do that. You _are_ a ghost, aren’t you?”

The ghost-girl nodded.

Suddenly, Cissie understood what the girl was getting at. For whatever reason, she couldn’t speak, but she could move things. Cissie grabbed her bag from where it sat on the floor by her chair and dug out a spiral notebook and a pencil. She threw them down on the table.

“Can you write?”

In response, the ghost-girl reached for the pencil.

Cissie couldn’t suppress a surge of excitement. Finally, she might get some answers. “What’s your name?”

Slowly, and with obvious difficulty, an answer appeared on the paper. _GRETA_.

“Greta.” Cissie smiled. At least she could call her something other than “ghost-girl” now. “What’s the secret?”

Waiting for Greta to scratch out each answer was almost agonizing. The pencil kept slipping through her hands, and it clearly took every ounce of concentration she had to make even the tiniest of strokes.

 _HOUSE_.

“House. A house is the secret?”

Greta shook her head and tried again. After _HOUSE_ , she began to write _OF SECR_ —

“House of secrets. It’s a house _of_ secrets?”

Greta nodded.

Unfortunately, that meant absolutely nothing to Cissie. “What is? St. Elias?”

A head shake. No.

“Okay. Where is the house of secrets?”

 _MANHA_ —

“Manhattan?”

Greta nodded eagerly.

“Manhattan, New York?”

Greta gave Cissie a look that plainly said, _well, duh_.

“Yeah, stupid question. I’ve never been to Manhattan. But this has something to do with me?”

A nod.

“Anything else you can give me?”

Greta thought this over. Then she picked up the pencil and drew a line. She put a triangle at one end of the line, and then drew diagonal lines coming out from the other end.

“An arrow?” Cissie guessed.

Greta nodded.

“So… this has to do with my archery?”

Another nod.

“A house of secrets in Manhattan, and archery,” Cissie said. “I hate riddles.”

Greta picked up the pencil and tried again. This time she wrote _JEANN_.

“Jeannette? Miss Jeannette has something to do with this?” Cissie suddenly felt alarmed, like the part in the story when the police tell the baby-sitter the calls are coming from inside the house.

Greta nodded. She looked less excited to confirm this one.

Cissie’s next question came out little more than breath. “Am I in danger?”

Greta’s ghostly mouth twisted up in something like a frown, and she shook her head, shrugging.

“You don’t know? How can you not _know_?”

But Greta was gone. The librarian had come around the stacks to shush Cissie.

Trying to look more chagrined and less annoyed, Cissie gathered up the yearbooks and reshelved them. When she went to get her bag, she paused to examine the page Greta had used.

_GRETA  
HOUSE OF SECR  
MANHA  
JEANN_

And it was somehow related to Cissie’s archery, and she may or may not currently be in danger.

Cissie’s greatest asset had never been her brain. She wasn’t stupid, but on the scale of brawn versus brains, she was definitely more the former. Which she realized wasn’t that impressive coming from an eleven-year-old girl who hadn’t even hit puberty yet. Still, she was a girl of action, not strategy, and she was aware of that. She was not going to be able to puzzle this out with the bare hints Greta had managed and a helping of can-do spirit.

The next step, Cissie knew, would involve the Internet. If she searched for a “house of secrets” in Manhattan, maybe she’d get some hits that could point her in the right direction.

She was on her way upstairs to her room when she realized that if she was in danger from Miss Jeannette, she needed to be careful about her every move. Did Miss Jeannette monitor the Internet? Would she be able to tap into Cissie’s cell phone?

Cissie would be going home for Christmas in just another week. She’d be able to check then. But if she was in danger from her headmistress… did she have that long to wait?

* * *

**16:27 EST**

Traya was in the room when Cissie got there, typing away on her computer. Seeing her at work gave Cissie a brain wave. Traya was smart, wasn’t she? Smarter than Cissie, at any rate.

“Stupid question,” Cissie said, dropping her bag on her bed. “Do you know how to hide what you’re doing on a computer?”

Traya frowned, scratching her head. “You mean if someone is wirelessly monitoring your activities?”

“Exactly.”

“There are a few ways. The easiest, depending on your situation, is probably tunneling with a Secure Shell.”

“And… what does that mean?”

Cissie was pretty sure that when Traya responded, words came out. Her mouth was moving like a person talking normally, anyway. But all Cissie heard was that muted trombone noise that adults made whenever they talked on a _Peanuts_ cartoon.

“O… kay,” she said when Traya paused for a breath. “I don’t know what any of that means.”

“I can show you, if you like.” Traya looked thrilled at the prospect.

“Yeah, that’d be awesome.”

Cissie stood behind Traya’s chair and watched everything she did, but if asked later what she saw, she wouldn’t have been able to give much more specific than, “She typed a thing, and clicked on a thing, and typed some more things.” And even that might have been wrong.

“So now we’re on Google securely. So let’s say you wanted to look for…”

“House of secrets Manhattan.”

Traya didn’t flinch. “House of secrets Manhattan,” she repeated as she typed in the words.

“You’re _sure_ nobody else can see this?” Cissie asked nervously before she could hit return.

“I’d be very, very surprised and impressed if anyone managed it. If we were being monitored by, say, Miss Jeannette, she would only see encrypted, secure transfers, without the details.”

“Wouldn’t that look suspicious?”

“Probably,” said Traya with a shrug. “But she wouldn’t be able to do much about it, especially if you purged your browser history. I mean, an expert could dig up anything, but she’d have to be pretty hardcore about figuring out what you were doing if she went that far. Or I guess she could put you on the rack until you talked.”

This last was obviously meant as a bit of slightly macabre humor, but Cissie couldn’t help but feel that wasn’t completely out of the question.

“But for now, only you and I are the ones who can see… a New York Times article, a couple of Google books results, an imdb page, a business listing…”

“That one,” Cissie said. “Let me see that one.”

Traya clicked on the business listing. “Abel’s House of Secrets, Manhattan. It’s a magic shop.”

Cissie read the page that came up three times. It gave hours, a location, items sold—but nothing that could be related to Miss Jeannette, archery, or Cissie. Not unless Greta, for reasons unfathomable, felt that trick handcuffs or a marked deck of cards would be vital for Cissie in the near future.

“Are you a magician?” Traya asked. “I’ve kind of always wanted to learn magic. I mean, stage magic, not magic-magic. It would be cool but I think you kind of have to have a talent for that and… wow I’m rambling like an airhead.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Never mind. So um… did that help?”

“Not really… I mean, yes. As much as it could have, I guess. Thanks.”

“Are you planning on stopping there on the trip next week?”

Cissie blinked. “Trip?”

“There’s a trip to the art museum on Wednesday,” said Traya. “I guess I just assumed… I mean, you can probably still sign up, if you want? It’s like a four hour drive there _and_ back, so I mean, it’s an all-day thing, so…”

Had Greta known about the trip? Was she trying to tell Cissie to go on it and while in Manhattan somehow pay a visit to Abel’s House of Secrets? But why? None of it made any sense.

There was only one way to find out. “Um… yeah. I guess I’ll see if I can go.”


	7. Interruptions

**DECEMBER 17, 00:03 EST**

It was about ten minutes after Cissie went to bed—right at the moment when she was transitioning from awake to asleep—that the idea dawned on her. At first she was going to wait until the morning to follow up on it, but almost three hours later, she was more alert than ever and decided to take the hint to act on it now.

The problem was that even if she wanted to try it, she didn’t know how to find Greta. Greta always came to her. She tried to focus her thoughts on Greta, as if she could somehow draw her in with the power of the Force or something, but unsurprisingly, that did absolutely nothing.

Finally the stagnation got to her again and she got up, slipping out her bedroom door—

—and almost ran right into Miss Jeannette.

“Cissie,” said Miss Jeannette.

“Uh—bathroom,” Cissie said reflexively.

“I must admit, I’m a bit concerned about your frequent nocturnal micturition,” said Miss Jeannette. “It can be symptomatic of some serious health problems.”

“Oh, no, no no no, it’s nothing like that,” Cissie said quickly. She didn’t know what “micturition” meant but she guessed it probably had something to do with peeing. “I just drank a lot of… tea before bed. You know how that can be.” Or so she had heard, not being a frequent tea drinker herself.

“Mm,” said Miss Jeannette, clearly unconvinced. “Cissie, I know I’ve said this several times already, but really, remember if there is absolutely anything you feel you want or need to talk to someone about, you can come to me. Even if you think it’s petty or silly or… perhaps downright bizarre. My door is always open, and anything shared between us will be strictly confidential. Not even your parents will need to hear a word of it.”

It might have been Cissie’s imagination, but she could have almost sworn that Miss Jeannette paused and gave her a pointed look when she said “downright bizarre.”

Did she know about Greta? She _had_ caught Cissie muttering at air in the middle of the night. Maybe she just didn’t want to say anything—give Cissie the chance to own up to it herself.

Come to think of it, how did Cissie know she could trust Greta? After all, Miss Jeannette was her headmistress who had shown her nothing but kindness and concern so far. Greta was… what? A ghost? A secret?

Not for the first time, Cissie wondered if Greta was even real.

“There’s nothing,” she told Miss Jeannette, trying to mean it.

A flicker of something like disappointment flashed across Miss Jeannette’s face, but it disappeared just as quickly. “If you say so. I’d appreciate not catching you out of bed again, Cissie.”

“You won’t,” said Cissie, all though she doubted that was actually true given Miss Jeannette’s uncanny ability to appear wherever she was. “Oh—I just remembered. This might not be the best time to ask about this, but Traya mentioned something about a trip to Manhattan next week? To go to the art museum?”

“Ah. Are you saying you would like to go?”

“If I can. Yes. Please.”

Miss Jeannette considered this at length. “I don’t know. You’re doing well with your work but I don’t want to take the chance of you slipping further behind before you’ve even finished catching up. There will be plenty of other trips in the future.”

“Traya said she would tutor me on the bus ride there and back,” Cissie blurted out.

Obviously, Traya had said nothing of the sort, but that seemed like a minor quibble that could be sorted out later.

“That’s about the normal amount of time I’d be studying in a day, isn’t it?”

Again Miss Jeannette didn’t say anything for a long moment. Cissie was starting to get the impression her forehead was flashing _LIAR_. “Very well. That’s very considerate of Miss Sutton. I hope you’ll express your appreciation.”

“I will. I have. Both of those things,” Cissie said, then resisted the urge to hit herself in the face, which would probably be even more of a dead giveaway.

“Good. I’ll add you to the list and let Ms. Jacobs know she’s got another student coming. Take care of business and then back to bed with you.”

Cissie nodded. “Good night, Miss Jeannette. I’ll be careful about tea before bed in the future.”

She took her time in the bathroom, especially since she didn’t really even have to go. She checked all the stalls in case Greta was doing a Moaning Myrtle, but they were all empty. She caught a glimpse of her reflection, which sparked another idea. She took a deep breath, then stood in front of the mirror and said, “Bloody Greta. Bloody Greta. Bloody Greta.”

Nothing. Well, Greta wasn’t bloody anyway. Just kind of pale and smoky and sad. But just saying, “Greta. Greta. Greta,” seemed even less likely to work. If chances came in less than zero.

Finally she left the bathroom to go back to bed.

Miss Jeannette was still in the hall. She gave Cissie a gentle smile.

“Good night,” Cissie said again as she passed, this time a bit more awkwardly.

“Good night, Cissie.”

Cissie had no choice but to return to her room and shut the door behind her. She crawled back into bed, where she stayed until dawn hoping Greta would find her later.

More importantly, that Greta really did exist in the first place.

* * *

**DECEMBER 19, 15:56 EST**

Cissie didn’t see Greta again once that weekend. She did run into Miss Jeannette several more times, though—how many, she couldn’t say exactly; she lost count at three.

She felt weirdly paranoid the entire time she was at her archery lesson with Ms. Doi. Was Ms. Doi in on whatever was going on? Was it somehow important for Cissie to be a better archer? A worse archer? She hoped it was the latter, because she was so confused by the whole mess it was impossible for her to focus as well as she needed to. Ms. Doi didn’t say much, though, just observed, as usual. The look in her eye said she knew Cissie was fully aware of what she was doing wrong.

“Dawn Granger made me write a lot for English,” Cissie said weakly. “My wrist is a bit… sore?”

“‘He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else,’” Ms. Doi said.

Cissie paused to think about this. “That’s deep.”

“Benjamin Franklin. We are all entitled to our off days, but looking elsewhere to cast blame serves no purpose except to consume oxygen. That’s all for today. I trust you’ll be back to form tomorrow.”

“You bet,” Cissie said with more enthusiasm than she felt as she began to tidy up.

She trudged back up to her room feeling tired and dejected.

The last thing she was expecting when she opened the door was just what she saw: Greta standing in the middle of the room.

She shut the door behind her with a snap. “Where have you been? Wait, no, don’t answer that. I don’t think I could stand it if you said ‘secret.’ Or ‘secrets.’ But look. I had an idea.” She went to her desk and opened her ancient, seldom-used laptop. It took a long moment to get going, buzzing and whirring the whole way. “Sorry. I think this machine is older than I am.”

Greta stood there silently, watching.

“Okay! I was thinking, it’s hard for you to write, and talk, and… be solid, but maybe you could type a little more easily?” Cissie said, pulling up a blank Notepad document. “Yes? No? Maybe so?”

Greta stepped up to the keyboard and reached down. It took her one or two tries but she typed a “y” with much less difficulty than it took her to write.

Cissie grinned. “Yes! Awesome. Okay but wait… first I should make sure Miss Jeannette can’t see what we’re doing… I should do that, right?”

Greta nodded.

Cissie stared blankly at the computer screen. She knew there was no way she could duplicate Traya’s burrowing process or whatever she’d called it. But then, they weren’t using the Internet, so maybe it didn’t matter? Still, it couldn’t hurt to be too careful…

She stood there, chewing her thumbnail and utterly clueless about what steps she could take to make sure Miss Jeannette was kept out. The only response she got from the computer was the cursor continuing to blink unfeelingly back at her.

At least a couple of minutes went by. Then suddenly the door opened and Traya appeared.

“Perfect timing! Do you—” Cissie stopped. Greta was gone. “Wait, no, come back! Traya’s okay!”

Traya raised an eyebrow. “Uh… Cissie?”

Cissie shut the door behind Traya. “Stop. I know exactly how this is going to sound. So first I’m just going to ask you if I have to worry about being spied on even when I’m not using the Internet.” She walked back over to her desk and pointed at her computer.

The look Traya gave her was the closest facial expression to an ellipsis Cissie had ever seen. Finally Traya turned and looked at the computer screen, which still only had a Notepad document with “y” in it sitting open.

“Can I ask why you’re so worried about being spied on?”

“I’ll explain as soon as Greta comes back. Just… is that something people can do?”

“Well… yes, theoretically, if the computers are on the same network. A knowledgeable hacker could get in without that, though, and there are always things like malware to worry about.”

“Okay, well… how do I stop that?”

“Encryption. Firewalls. Disconnecting from all networks, obviously.”

“Does your computer have that stuff up?”

“It could…”

“Greta!” Cissie said, throwing caution to the wind. “Greta, come back. Traya’s good people. Please? It’s safe, I promise.”

Nobody spoke or moved for a long moment, and Cissie was pretty sure Traya was contemplating the quickest route out the door and to the school psychiatrist.

Then suddenly Traya gasped. Cissie could tell without turning that Greta had reappeared behind her. She let out a sigh of relief. Not only had Greta come back and proved herself real to Traya, Traya’s reaction proved once and for all that Greta was real to Cissie, too.

“Greta, Traya. Traya, Greta. Greta’s the reason I want to make sure no one can see what I’m doing on the computer.”

“Does this have something to do with Abel’s House of Secrets?” Traya asked.

Greta’s eyes widened.

“It’s okay,” Cissie assured her. “Yes. Sort of. If you’ll get your computer all… fire… thing…”

“Firewall,” said Traya, still staring at Greta.

“That. We may both get some answers.”

Traya nodded numbly, then walked over to her own desk like she was walking at the bottom of a pool. Cissie closed her computer, then stepped behind Traya’s chair.

After a moment of clicking and typing that, as usual, meant nothing to Cissie, Traya seemed satisfied. “Okay. It should… be secure. What now?”

“Something to type in,” said Cissie. “Like Notepad or… whatever you have.”

Traya opened a program. It wasn’t Notepad but it was close enough. Then she sort of half-stood, awkwardly, and turned to Greta. “Do you… want the… chair…?”

Greta shook her head and stepped up to the keyboard, then looked at Cissie expectantly.

“Okay. Right. Um…” Cissie could hardly believe it. She’d wanted answers for so long and now that she might actually get them, she was completely blanking on questions. “Oh. Okay. So. Miss Jeannette. What’s the deal?”

Greta turned to the keyboard and carefully pecked out _UNSURE. WANTS YOU. WANTS ME TOO_.

“‘Wants’?” Traya and Cissie both repeated.

“Like… _wants_?” Cissie didn’t even know what to make of this.

Greta shook her head. _ARCHERY SKILLS_.

“Oh!” said Cissie. Already it was starting to make slightly more sense. “Why does she want you?”

“Cissie,” Traya hissed. “That was kind of rude.”

“What? She can barely hold a pencil; I’m just assuming she’s not a pro with a bow. Ooh, a rhyme.”

Greta nodded with something like approval, then turned back to the keyboard: _UNSURE. GHOSTS CAN DO THINGS_.

“Oh. You mean, like… poofing and… things?” Cissie made a poofing motion with her hands.

Greta rolled her eyes, apparently unimpressed with Cissie’s command of the English language, then nodded.

“Do you have any idea what she wants us _for_?” Cissie asked, ignoring the attitude.

Greta shook her head no.

“Of course not. That would be too easy.” Cissie went back to chewing her thumbnail. “How did you die? You are dead, right?”

Greta nodded sadly, then typed _MURDERED_.

There was a knock at the door. Greta vanished before Traya or Cissie could blink.

When Traya opened it, Cissie understood why: on the other side was Miss Jeannette.


	8. Crushed

**DECEMBER 19, 16:14 EST**

“Hello, girls,” Miss Jeannette said, smiling at them. “Sorry to bother you. I just wanted to talk to Traya about Cissie’s lessons on Wednesday.”

Cissie tried to keep the grimace off her face. She’d completely forgotten to give Traya a heads-up about that.

“Lessons,” Traya repeated. “On Wednesday. You mean… on the trip?”

_Yes!_ Cissie thought. _Good!_

“Of course,” said Miss Jeannette. “I just wanted to make sure you had gotten the chance to go over where Cissie is with her other tutors.”

“Ah… not yet,” Traya said. “I was going to do that to…morrow, if that’s okay.”

“Indeed. Just make sure you do it before Wednesday. I hope Cissie has thanked you for your generous offer, Traya. It’s very kind of you to do this for her.”

“Yeah, well… that’s me all over,” said Traya. Cissie could see she was about to lose the thread completely, like a glass wobbling on the edge of a table.

“I was just telling Traya about the book of poetry Dawn’s having me read right now,” Cissie said quickly. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted her to bother Dawn personally, so…”

“Ah. I see. Well, yes, I would prefer it if she spoke with Miss Granger and the others just to be sure you’re all on the same page. It’s perfectly fine with me if you prefer to do it tomorrow, though, Traya. Let me know if you have any problems, will you?”

“Yes, Miss Jeannette. Thank you,” said Traya.

Miss Jeannette smiled again and walked away.

Traya shut the door and slumped against it. “My heart is _pounding_.”

“Sorry,” Cissie said automatically. “I told Miss Jeannette that you would help me with my lessons on the bus ride so I could go on the trip on Wednesday. I meant to, you know, tell you you’d volunteered for that…”

“That would have been helpful, yeah.”

“You did good, though,” said Cissie. “If I didn’t know better I probably wouldn’t have guessed you had no clue what you were talking about.”

“Uh… thanks.” Traya managed to push herself off the door and get to her bed, then flopped down on it. “Okay, so, let me get this straight. The headmistress wants you for… something. And you’re friends with a ghost. A ghost the headmistress killed.”

“Whoa, wait, you think Miss Jeannette _killed_ Greta?” Cissie said, stunned.

“She said—or typed—whatever—that she was murdered,” Traya said, waving a hand over her head without lifting her face from her red comforter. “And she’s obviously scared of Miss Jeannette. And oh my _gosh_ how did I never realize before how creepy Miss Jeannette is. ‘Let me know if you have any problems.’ ‘Here, have a cup of tea.’ ‘I’m going to take a personal interest in each of my students.’”

Cissie decided not to point out that she wasn’t really sure what was so creepy about an educator caring. “We don’t know if she _killed_ Greta, though. I mean…” She was grasping at straws for her own peace of mind and she knew it. It wasn’t that she didn’t think Miss Jeannette had killed Greta. It was that she couldn’t allow herself to believe she was in the same building as a murderer. “The… the yearbooks!”

“Huh?”

“Greta said she wasn’t in the yearbooks,” said Cissie. “So she was never a student here.”

“But we don’t know when she died, or how, or where,” Traya pointed out. “And Abel’s House of Secrets is in Manhattan. This might not have anything to do with the school at all.”

“So you think it’s just a coincidence that I came here and _happen_ to… I don’t know, serve some kind of purpose for the headmistress?”

“No,” Traya said, sitting up with a serious expression on her face. “Cissie, why _did_ you come here?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s almost the end of term. Why did you come here now?”

“I got a letter. It said they wanted me…” She trailed off, looking at her bed. A chill ran up her spine. “Traya… what happened to your last roommate?”

Traya cringed. “She asked to be moved to a different room.”

Cissie let out a breath. “Oh. So she’s still here?”

“Yeah. She didn’t want to room with me after she found out…”

“Found out what?”

Traya flushed red, though whether it was from embarrassment or anger Cissie couldn’t have said. “After she found out I’m from Bialya. She said a lot of really ugly things and…” She stared down at her hands in her lap.

“I had no idea,” said Cissie.

“I thought you didn’t like me for the same reason. After we met. And Miss Jeannette told you where I was from.”

“What? No,” said Cissie. “I didn’t like you because I thought you were… you know… like… never mind, that’s not important. Where you were born has nothing to do with it. I was born in the United States. That doesn’t make me… Benedict Arnold.”

Traya almost smiled, seemingly in spite of herself. “Technically, the United States didn’t exist as a country when Benedict Arnold was born.”

“Okay, well, um. I don’t know, history’s not my thing. Who would you suggest?”

Traya gave this some serious thought. “Richard Nixon, maybe, depending on how you feel about him. Oh, I know! Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. He blew people up. Hardly anybody sympathizes with him.”

“Okay. I was born in the United States, that doesn’t make me Ted Kenickie.”

“Kaczynski.”

“Him too.”

Traya giggled, covering her mouth with her hand.

“I’m serious though,” Cissie said. “Not liking someone because of where they were born is just stupid.”

“So why didn’t you like me?”

Cissie stared up at the ceiling, scratching her head. “I don’t know, I thought… you were prettier than me.”

“Oh. Wait, really?”

“Your eyes especially. They’re really… you know… pretty.”

“Ah. Yeah. Pretty eyes. That’s a much smarter reason to dislike someone.” But Traya was fighting to hold back laughter, clearly not upset about the situation.

“Shut up,” said Cissie, grabbing a pillow off her bed and throwing it at her.

“‘Shut up’! She returns with a killer counter-argument! How could anyone hope to succeed in the face of such unimpeachable logic?” Traya fell backwards onto her bed, laughing so hard that breathing was starting to become difficult.

Cissie tried to hit her with another pillow but the force of the swing was softened somewhat by the fact that she was collapsing into giggles herself. She fell on top of Traya, and the two of them lay there, helpless to do anything but laugh for several long moments.

When they finally managed to get control of themselves and catch their breath again, Traya cleared her throat and said, “Well. I’m glad you decided to stop not liking me.”

“Yeah,” said Cissie. “Me too.”

* * *

**DECEMBER 20, 16:02 EST**

When Cissie got back to her room the following afternoon, Traya was already there, typing away on her computer.

“Oh, uh, not to be a nag or anything, but you should probably talk to—”

Before Cissie could finish, Traya held up a slip of paper and waved it like a flag. “Your tutors? Way ahead of you.”

“Oh. My mistake. I thought you were a slacker like me.” She dropped her archery case on her bed and flopped down after it. “Wait… does this mean you’re actually going to make me _learn_ tomorrow?”

“Yep.”

Cissie sighed. She should have expected it. “What are you doing?” she asked, as if changing the subject immediately would make Traya forget.

“Trying to see if I can’t find anything else about Greta. You haven’t seen here since yesterday, have you?”

“No,” Cissie admitted with a frown. She’d been hoping to find her, to at least ask if Miss Jeannette was the one who’d killed her, but there was no sign of her.

“It’s hard to do much searching when all I’ve got to go on are a first name and a borough with a population of over one and a half million.” Traya put her head in her hand, looking frustrated. “I wish she’d been able to give us more information.”

“Preaching to the choir. The first couple of times I saw her, all she could say was ‘secret.’ Or, well, ‘secrets.’ She was super pleased with herself for that one. Believe me, it’s like having an encyclopedia on her now compared to that.”

“Well, I did find one interesting thing,” said Traya. “Or rather, it’s what I _didn’t_ find that’s interesting. Specifically, anything about Miss Jeannette before she became headmistress here.”

“Is that… bad?”

Traya shrugged. “It’s a little weird. It’s the information age. You can find pretty much anything about anyone nowadays. Not to toot my own horn but if the information is out there, the chances are I can find it. I mean, I actually have something to _look_ for when it comes to her, unlike with Greta. But everything I’ve found about her relates specifically to her tenure here. No teaching jobs she held before, no academic articles… I don’t know. I just feel like there should be _something_.”

Cissie was inclined to think this was less of a big deal than Traya seemed to think it was, but she decided to humor her. “What could it mean?”

“Well… I suppose it’s a possibility that ‘Jeannette Hoffman’ isn’t her real name,” Traya said thoughtfully.

“Oh! She told me she’s from Hungary. Maybe you aren’t finding anything because the relevant search thingies are all in Hungarian or something.”

“Uh, maybe.” Though the tone of her voice said pretty plainly that that wasn’t it.

“Actually she said she’s lived lots of places,” Cissie said, trying not to sound huffy. “So maybe it’s in… I don’t know, Latin.”

“Cissie, nobody’s actually spoken Latin in over a millennium.”

“What? No! People speak Latin all the time! They put it on money and… on buildings and things… that _is_ Latin, right?”

“Yeah. People mostly use Latin when they want to be pretentious. Nobody actually _speaks_ it as their native language, though. I mean, it’s a valuable thing to study because so much of English, not to mention bunches of other languages like French and Spanish, has roots in Latin. So learning Latin can help you with languages people _do_ speak.”

“Oh… okay. Cool.”

“Right. I can see your interest in this topic waning. Anyway, the point is, that’s a possibility, I guess, but search engines should still at least pick up her _name_. Anyway, you might be right. It might mean nothing. It’s just weird, is all.”

“Is it good you at least haven’t found anything about her getting arrested for murder?”

“It’s not… _bad_.”

“Okay, so what you’re saying is that you have learned nothing, and that means nothing.”

“Uh… yeah, that sounds about right.”

“Good. Awesome. Well. At least I’ll go to my doom knowing about…” Cissie walked over to Traya’s desk and picked up the slip of paper. “Fractions, percents, and decimals.”

“I am ninety-five percent certain I detect sarcasm in your tone,” Traya said.

“Only ninety-five? I’ll need to try harder next time.”

* * *

**DECEMBER 21, 02:21 EST**

_The blow of the axe was supposed to be clean: one swing and her head would come off. That was what people said. Execution by decapitation was painless. How anybody was supposed to know that, she had no idea._

_She had paid the man with the only valuable she had left to her, her mother’s necklace. It was supposed to ensure that things would be quick and precise. She knew as soon as she got close to him that that wasn’t going to happen, though. The smell of alcohol was heavy on his breath._

_Her shoulder, her thoracic vertebrae, once a blow to the back of the head that she prayed would finally kill her, but she was still conscious, still aware of every agonizing second. Aware of the crowd’s jollity. Aware of the executioner’s indifference. Aware of everything but herself._

_Four blows. That was how many it took before she finally died._

Cissie sat up in bed, her heart racing. Her neck, back, and shoulders ached. She reached up to touch her head, make sure it was still attached, make sure she hadn’t been butchered with an axe. But she was perfectly fine, all in one piece, not bleeding, not wounded.

She crawled out of bed, unwilling to shut her eyes again any time soon. She didn’t want to leave the room either, sure that Miss Jeannette would be out there. Instead she curled up in the space between the two beds, clutching her Captain Carrot tightly to her chest, and stared at the wall until she finally lost track of time.


	9. Ticking

**DECEMBER 21, 05:17 EST**

“Cissie? Hello? Are you still in there?”

Cissie blinked. She had never really fallen asleep, but she definitely stopped being quite awake a long time before. Her whole body ached from the position she’d pretzeled herself in, but she didn’t regret not going back to bed.

“Ow,” she told Traya.

“Are you okay?”

“Not really.” Inch by inch, she unboxed herself, pausing with each movement to stretch out her cramped muscles until they felt less atrophied. “What time is it?”

“After five,” Traya said, glancing at the clock. “The bus leaves in less than hour. Maybe you shouldn’t go?”

“No,” Cissie told her firmly, taking a creaking step forward with the help of the bed as support. “No, I’m definitely going.”

“Okay, well… I printed a map with directions on how to get from the museum to Abel’s House of Secrets. What’s the plan?”

“Plan?”

“You know. How are we going to get away from the group without being noticed? What are we going to do when we get to the House of Secrets? How do we join up again still without being noticed?”

“Uh,” Cissie said. “Hadn’t really thought that far. Was kinda just going to wing it.”

“I feel like I should be less surprised by this than I am,” Traya muttered, thoroughly unimpressed.

“Give me a break. My mother’s always telling me, ‘Don’t think, just do.’ So I don’t think. I just… do.”

“Well that’s solid advice for successful living.” Traya’s voice and expression were as dry as dust.

“I guess we can add that to the list of reasons why I came to St. Elias to get away from her.” Cissie bent down to pick up her archery case with an audible crack. “That didn’t sound good.”

“Have you tried talking to Greta?”

“It’s not really something I ‘try to do,’” Cissie said. “Greta kind of just comes and goes when she wants to. Anyway, I know we have one advantage in our favor: Miss Jeannette’s not going to be anywhere near Manhattan. She’s not chaperoning the trip and she’ll have to be here at the school. So really, that makes this the ideal time to do a little investigating.”

“That conclusion relies on a lot of assumptions I’m not sure you’re aware you’re making,” Traya told her critically.

“Tray, if you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to. But I am.”

“You could get in serious trouble for this. Even if there’s nothing dangerous at the House of Secrets, if you get caught, you might be expelled.”

“Okay, Hermione. Are you coming or not?”

“Obviously I am,” Traya scoffed. “Jeez, it’s like you don’t even know me.”

“Good. Then _you_ can come up with the plan. You’re a planner, right? As leader of this team, I designate you the Official Planner. Congratulations.” Cissie patted her on the shoulder, then shuffled out the door and down the hall to wash up.

* * *

**07:48 EST**

After her other methods of poking and prodding failed to keep Cissie awake and alert, Traya finally hit upon a winner: striking up a chorus of “100 Bottles of Pop” in which most of the rest of the bus enthusiastically joined.

“I take it all back,” Cissie muttered, pressing her forehead against the ice cold glass of the window. “I don’t like you very much at all.”

“You have to at least pretend to work,” said Traya. “If you don’t, I don’t know how Miss Jeannette will react and I just don’t want that on my head.”

The image of an axe blade glinted in Cissie’s mind and she shuddered, suddenly feeling like she was going to be sick. She buried her face in the pages of “Annabel Lee” as if she could inhale the sea and the moonbeams of the poem to wash it away.

“Don’t eat the book, Cissie.”

Cissie let the book fall back into her lap, turning her head just enough to give Traya a Look. Traya smiled sweetly back.

“Why does Poe write about dead women all the time?” Cissie asked.

“He thought it was poetic,” Traya said.

“That’s… creepy.”

Traya thought about it. “Yeah… I guess it kind of is.”

“‘Annabel Lee’ is one of my favorite poems,” Dawn Granger said from the seat in front of them, turning around to join in the conversation. “It’s just so musical and lovely.”

Cissie squinted at the book in her lap, but she really pretty much just saw a bunch of words about a dead lady. “Sure.”

“Sorry, hi,” said Dawn. She pointed at the girl next to her, who had her headphones on and was playing Angry Birds on her phone. “Not much stimulating conversation going on up here. Just me and my book.” She raised it briefly for them to see.

“What are you reading, Dawn?” Traya asked.

“A biography on Alexander the Great. It’s fascinating. I love military history.”

Traya and Dawn launched into a conversation about Alexander the Great’s conquests—or at least, that’s what Cissie _thought_ they were talking about, but the _Peanuts_ -trombone noise was back.

She set the poetry aside, finally tired enough that even seventy-eight bottles of pop couldn’t keep her eyes open another second, and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

**MANHATTAN, NEW YORK  
10:33 EST**

Cissie’s forehead met the back of Dawn’s seat hard, leaving the impression of leather in it. She sat up, looking around in confusion, trying to remember where she was and why.

“Speed bump,” Traya said, by way of an explanation.

Cissie put a hand to her forehead. Oh right. She was on the bus. They were going to Manhattan.

_In_ Manhattan, she realized, looking out the window at the signs.

“Okay, while you were off in dreamland, I worked up a rough plan of attack for us. I was thinking, our best chance to break off from the group is during lunch, which the itinerary says will be at about one. The _problem_ is that Ms. Jacobs will probably be expecting that. I’m sure she’ll do a head count right after lunch. So I think what we should do is wait until just _after_ lunch, and then do our best to slip away unnoticed—this will probably involve ducking in a side room or hanging back when everyone goes around a corner or something.”

“So what you’re saying is,” Cissie said, trying to rub the lines out of her forehead, “we’re going to wing it.”

“Well—no, I mean, yes, but.” Traya sighed. “Humor me, okay?”

“All right, all right. Then what, Official Planner?”

“Abel’s House of Secrets is actually really close to the museum,” Traya said, producing a map. “I looked up the bus schedule and found that there’s a bus at 2:00 that will take us straight from the museum to about a block away from Abel’s. That’s cutting it a bit close _but_ I think we can make it as long as the bus isn’t early. Factoring in boarding the bus, disembarking, and walking, we should get to Abel’s by about 2:30. The website said they’re open on weekdays until 8:00, so that’s _plenty_ of time for us to poke around. I figure we’ll probably want to be there for a half an hour, hour at the most. There’s a bus back to the museum at 4:00, which should be about perfect for us. So in total we’ll be gone probably under three hours. _If_ Ms. Jacobs notices we’re gone, we can just say we took a wrong turn, got separated from the group, and spent that time lost like a couple of airhead kids. Think you can pull that off?”

“Does my forehead look funny to you?” Cissie said, leaning forward and pointing it at Traya so she could get a better look.

“So… yes. Okay. Good.” She folded up her map and tucked it back into her bag. “I hope we’ll still have time to look at some of the exhibits. There’s this one of medieval ivory chessmen from the Isle of Lewis I _really_ want to see. The ‘Storytelling in Japanese Painting’ also sounds really cool.”

“Yeah, well. If we’re not dead I’m sure well have plenty of time in the evening.” Cissie opened her bag and checked again that her archery case was securely inside. “Seriously, you looked up the _bus schedules_?”

Traya looked a little offended. “Yes. Forewarned is forearmed.”

“Fore _armed_ is forearmed,” Cissie countered. “Give me a well-made bow and a quiver full of sharp pointy things over a bus schedule any day.”

“You would say that.”

“I _did_ say that. Because it’s true.”

The bus pulled up outside the museum, and Ms. Jacobs stood up to give them their final instructions.

“You ready?” Cissie asked.

“As I’ll ever be,” Traya replied, her face a mask of grim determination. “Wow, I bet this is the most intense trip to a magic shop ever.”

Cissie opened her archery case to peek inside, the sight of her bow comforting her. “I just hope ‘intense’ is the strongest word we’ll be using for it.”

* * *

**10:56 EST**

The plan began to fall apart before it even got started. For one thing, Cissie had failed to take into account the heavy museum security, and that St. Elias might actually have decided to take advantage of that. They were all in their school uniforms and there was no way anyone dressed like that was making it out the door without a battering ram.

On top of that, Ms. Jacobs instituted a check-in system. She paired everyone off and told them there would be a designated check-in spot that they would have to stop by at least once every two hours. If anyone got separated from their partner they were to go to the check-in spot and wait there to join up. If their partner didn’t show within half an hour, they were to report it to Ms. Jacobs. If three hours went by without hearing from a person or a pair, the police would be called.

Cissie and Traya paired themselves, so that part, at least, would be easy. Still, Cissie couldn’t keep from grimacing. The _police_ would be called after three hours? Things could get very ugly very quickly in that case.

“What do we do now, O Planner of mine?” she muttered to Traya as they filed off the bus.

Traya scoffed. “This is better than I could have hoped for. You don’t think much of me, do you?” She pulled out a stopwatch and checked it against the watch on her wrist.

“I don’t think _knowing_ we missed a check-in is going to stop it from being really unpleasant,” Cissie pointed out.

“Give me a little more credit than that.” Once they were off the bus, Traya opened her bag fractionally to show Cissie what was inside. Cissie caught a brief glimpse of blue jeans before the bag was closed again.

“Clothes,” she breathed, so impressed she decided not to remark that Traya would make the worst drug dealer ever.

Traya grinned. “Seriously. Have a little faith. We’ll slip into the bathroom and change there, then stroll on out like we have nothing to do with the girls in the plaid skirts.”

“What about the check-in?”

“All we have to do is check in right before we leave,” Traya said. “That leaves us a maximum of three hours to catch the bus, get to Abel’s, look around, and come back. That’s _more_ than enough time, even overestimating broadly when it comes to things like travel, which, by the way, we can count on fairly precisely owing to my _bus schedule_. We’ll just have to keep an eye on the clock and not stay at Abel’s very long. If we get in trouble for missing the two-hour mark, we just say we were enjoying ourselves so much we lost track of time.”

Cissie watched Traya synchronize a third watch and hand it to her. As if anybody would ever believe Traya could lose track of time.

“Okay, well,” Cissie said, putting the watch on her wrist after Traya’s pointed glare stopped her from slipping it into her pocket. “I hope you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. Now come on, I’m starving and I want to eat before we leave to simply walk into Mordor.”

“Seriously? You just made that reference?”

“Yep. Aren’t you glad you have me on your side?”

Cissie sighed and decided not to answer, because the honest response was still “yes.”


	10. Down

**DECEMBER 21, 13:51 EST**

Traya pulled the bill of her red baseball cap lower over her face and poked her head out of the bathroom.

Cissie sighed and pushed the door all the way open, strolling out more casually.

“Wait!” Traya hissed. “We’re less likely to attract attention if we go out separately. You go ahead and drop this off when you get your bag, then wait for me at the bus stop. I’m going to look at this exhibit for two minutes and then follow after you. Okay?”

“Got it,” said Cissie, taking Traya’s bag with their clothes from her. When she realized that there was a bag check on the way into the museum, she’d had to leave her own things on the bus, not willing to take the chance of getting caught trying to bring in a weapon.

She kept her head up and walked straight for the front door.

She was ten yards away when, of all people, Holly Granger appeared before her. She hadn’t even seen her on the bus. She wasn’t sitting with Dawn, that was for sure.

“Well,” said Holly. “I wouldn’t have taken you for the type to go skiving off. And you came prepared.” She gave her a completely unsubtle up-and-down look that almost seemed impressed.

“Are you going to tell?” Cissie asked, giving her the hardest Kubrick stare possible, though she knew Holly was definitely not the type to be intimidated.

Holly scoffed, offended. “What kind of a swot do you take me for? I don’t care what you do. You’ll never be able to go without Jacobs noticing anyway. Watching you get caught on your own sounds like good fun to me. Ta.” She wiggled her fingers in a wave, then wandered off.

Cissie let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Holly wasn’t the nicest person, but Cissie was pretty sure she could count on her not to snitch. She realized this was probably the first and only time she’d ever be glad Holly was the Granger twin she had run into, and not Dawn.

She was outside. The security guard didn’t even give her a second glance. She ran for the school bus as fast as she could, Traya’s bag banging against her legs. The driver was leaning against the back emergency exit, talking on his cell phone and smoking a cigarette. He didn’t even notice her get on board.

She dumped Traya’s bag in their seat, then pulled her archery case out of her bag. She was pretty sure that was all she needed to bring with her. Traya would have already kept whatever she needed, like the Almighty Bus Schedule, on her person, probably in her pockets.

The detour only took a minute or two, she thought, but when she got to the bus stop, Traya was there waiting for her, fanning herself with her baseball cap.

“I’m so glad you took my bag with you,” she said, catching her breath. “I did _not_ like the look the security guard gave me. I thought she was going to strip search me to make sure I wasn’t trying to smuggle any Ming vases out under my shirt or something.”

They could see the bus coming within minutes. Traya leaned over, holding out her hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Letting the bus driver know we want on, of course,” she said. “I read you should do this. Also, I forgot to tell you to bring your fare in coins, but don’t worry, I brought extra.”

“You researched riding the buses?”

“And the subway,” Traya told her, unashamed. “But the subway stop doesn’t get as close to where we’re going as the bus does, so that ended up being irrelevant.”

“Somehow I get the feeling that happens to you a lot.”

They climbed on board the bus and Traya paid both their fares in quarters. Cissie thought Traya must have weighed about a pound less after she finished paying.

“You’re never allowed to meet my mother,” Cissie told her as they made their way to a pair of empty seats in the back.

“Huh? Why?”

“Because she would be all, ‘Cissie, why are you such a slacker? Why can’t you be more like Traya?’”

“Your mom thinks you’re a slacker?” Traya raised an eyebrow. “Are you kidding me? You’re one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever met.”

Cissie was truly surprised by this assessment. “Really?”

“Yeah! You’re on the go constantly! And you hardly ever seem to sleep.”

“That’s a recent development,” Cissie said, rubbing her neck self-consciously and trying not to think of axe blades. “What with my new ghost friend who likes to turn up in the middle of the night. I sleep when I can, I guess.”

“Well, I think your mom is unfair if she thinks you don’t do enough, because you do way more than that.” Traya nodded firmly.

Cissie had the mental image of Traya marching up to Bonnie and telling her off. Trying to get a message through to Bonnie was like trying to convince a brick wall to move out of your way, so it would have no impact whatsoever, but the thought still made her grin.

Traya consulted her map and when they got close to their stop, pulled the cord. Cissie had to admit she wouldn’t have known which stop to use without Traya, but only silently to herself.

They climbed off the bus from the back exit, the only ones to leave at that stop. Traya checked her watch. “It’s 2:27. We checked in at 1:44. If we catch the bus at four, we should be able to change and get back by about quarter of.”

“Quarter of… five? Are you kidding? Do you know how close that’s cutting it? What if the bus is late?”

“Well that would be rude, wouldn’t it?”

Traya didn’t seem to grasp that the rest of the world didn’t run on as taut a schedule as she did, but Cissie knew that trying to explain it to her just then would only waste time they didn’t have. She didn’t even want to think about traffic.

But there wasn’t much else she could do about it at the moment. They set off down the street towards Abel’s House of Secrets and whatever lay inside.

* * *

**14:32 EST**

Greta fell in step beside them within minutes.

“Nice of you to show up,” Cissie said.

Greta frowned at her but, of course, said nothing.

The neon sign on the front of the shop was mostly burnt out. The shop itself looked clean and in fairly good shape, but the broken sign gave the whole thing an unavoidable air of dereliction. Cissie only allowed herself a minute to survey the outside, then she pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The interior was pretty unremarkable, for a magic shop anyway. Top hats, decks of cards, boxes to put lovely assistants in and saw them in half or make them disappear entirely, all pretty standard stuff.

“Hello?” she said. She couldn’t see anyone else in the shop, not even an employee. “Hello? Is anyone here?”

The answer seemed to be no. Greta motioned for them to follow her, then she led them back through the shop to a door half-hidden by a curtain.

Cissie tried the knob. “It’s locked. We’ll have to break it down.” She turned to look for something heavy or sharp she could use to smash it.

“Hold on a minute, Chuck Norris,” said Traya. “Why don’t we, I don’t know, try the easy way instead of the most ridiculous way possible?” She pointed at Greta.

Greta nodded and phased through the door like it wasn’t even there. A few seconds later, it swung open.

“Oh,” said Cissie. “Yeah, I guess that also works.”

She went first through the doorway, which meant she was also the first to realize there was no floor, and the first to fall down into nothing.


	11. Unforgiving

**DECEMBER 21, 14:40 EST**

There was barely even time to react. Cissie couldn’t have taken out her bow even if she’d had the presence of mind to try. They hit the floor hard, but not as hard as she thought they should have. Then she realized it wasn’t the floor they’d hit, but the wall. The world was ninety degrees off what she swore it was just a moment ago.

She could tell by the way Traya was holding her head that she wasn’t the only one.

“What the—who designed this building? M.C. Escher?” Traya said, as if the attack on reason was the worst offense at work.

“Thanks for the warning,” Cissie muttered to Greta when she floated down after them. She kneeled on the floor to take her bow and quiver out of the case, then handed the case to Traya. She didn’t plan on getting caught off-guard a second time.

The look on Greta’s face was one of surprise. She shook her head.

“I don’t think Greta was expecting that, either,” Traya said judiciously.

“Oh. So they must have just removed the floor and put in a sideways room recently. It’s so dark in here. And hot. Why is it so hot in here? It was freezing outside.”

“Maybe whoever took the floor also left the heat running,” Traya said dryly, snapping on a tiny keychain flashlight. Unfortunately, it didn’t illuminate much. They looked to be in a room that could pass for a large closet, and with some exploring, they found doors on the left, on the right, and straight ahead.

The three of them exchanged glances. “Which way?” Cissie asked.

Greta held up her hand, then drifted off through the wall.

Cissie looked up towards the ceiling. How were there four walls around them when they’d come into the room sideways? And how were they supposed to get back out?

“I’m starting to get the feeling we’re going to miss check-in,” she said, pulling off her coat.

Traya took it from her, wisely deciding Cissie needed to keep her hands free. “I’m starting to get the feeling we’ll _need_ the police to be called.”

It took Greta what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a couple of minutes to come drifting back in from the wall opposite where she’d left. She pointed at the doors to the left and right, then made a falling motion with her arm.

“Those rooms don’t have floors either?” Traya guessed.

Greta nodded, then pointed at the door straight ahead.

“Our only option left,” Cissie said, nocking an arrow. “Is there anyone on the other side?”

Greta shrugged and shook her head.

“I’m guessing that means she didn’t _see_ anyone,” said Traya. “Right?”

Greta nodded.

Traya opened the door and Cissie stepped through first, bow at the ready. They were in what looked like a cave. The heat was oppressive. They hadn’t fallen very far at all, but Cissie felt like they had to be in a tunnel that led through the center of the earth.

Traya stopped to set Cissie’s things down, then she pulled off her own coat, though she didn’t look as uncomfortable as Cissie felt. “This is like…” she trailed off.

“Like what?” Cissie prompted.

Traya shook her head. They walked ahead, the only way they could, into the darkness beyond.

The ground beneath their feet began to soften and crunch. Sand. They were walking on sand, even though it had been solid rock before. Cissie had no idea what that could possibly mean.

She was still pondering the possibilities when she walked right into the wall.

The tunnel had taken a sharp turn to the left that she hadn’t noticed. When she turned, her stomach felt like it dropped out of her body.

“That’s impossible,” Traya said, her voice not more than a whisper.

They were standing in the harsh glare of the desert sun, in the middle of war zone, a tiny town that was little more than rubble and kindling now. Cissie turned back, but the tunnel they’d just been in was gone.

“Okay,” she said. “I want to get off the ride now.”

Greta pointed. There was a figure approaching. Cissie readied her bow, moving to stand in front of Traya.

But Traya had vanished as well.

“Traya!” she shouted, too worried about her friend’s immediate well-being to consider the potential danger of the approaching figure. “Traya!” But there was no response. Her voice didn’t even sound like it was being carried on the wind.

Cissie’s heart pounded in her chest. She had no idea what was going on. Greta was still at her side, looking just as freaked out. But what good could Greta do? Not to mention she couldn’t even be killed. No, that was an opportunity left only for Cissie now.

“Who’s there?” she shouted at the small figure that was picking its way through the rubble. She realized it was either a young child or, she supposed, maybe a dwarf. But when she held still for a moment, she could make out sobs. Small child, she was pretty sure.

She exchanged glances with Greta, who approached the child. Though Greta was several yards closer, Cissie saw what made her come to a stop in surprise at about the same time.

The figure was indeed a small child, a little girl. A little girl who was unmistakably Traya. She looked younger, five, maybe six at the very most, but there was no denying it. Her hair was a rat’s nest, and her face was streaked with grime and tears. Her clothing was torn and she was obviously injured.

Cissie ran to her, caution forgotten. When the little girl stumbled, she tried to catch her, but Traya went right through her.

Cissie jumped back in shock. She looked at Greta. “Am I… did I die? Am I dead now?”

Greta shook her head, her eyes wide. She didn’t think so.

But Cissie couldn’t feel so confident. She wasn’t solid anymore, and that was usually a pretty good sign of being a ghost. On top of that, Traya didn’t seem to notice either her or Greta. She just kept stumbling along.

Overhead there was a loud droning noise. Traya’s already-huge eyes grew even bigger, tears spilling down her cheeks, and she tried to move more quickly.

In the distance there was an explosion. It couldn’t have been that close, but it was powerful enough that Cissie and Greta, in their incorporeal states, both felt it throughout whatever they had instead of bodies, and Traya was blown clean off her feet.

She lay there in the rubble, bleeding and sobbing, and she didn’t get up again.

“Traya!” Cissie shrieked, trying to will her to hear. “Traya!” She didn’t know what else to say. _Are you all right?_ She obviously wasn’t. _Can you hear me?_ She obviously couldn’t. _What’s going on?_ Cissie couldn’t think of a more pointless question.

“Is this… did this really happen?” she asked. She looked down at Traya, then up at Greta, who seemed equally as clueless.

Cissie got back to her feet and looked around. “Is this Bialya? Is this a memory?” She looked down at Traya. “She’s so young. Where are her parents? Her family?”

She remembered the blast that had struck just seconds before. _Never mind_. She had a pretty good idea what the answer to _that_ question was.

“Traya, don’t give up,” Cissie said. “You didn’t before. I know you didn’t, because you survived. You have to get up and get to safety. Or…” She looked around at the desolate landscape. “Somewhere saf _er_.”

She wanted to grab Traya and drag her to her feet. There was a frantic feeling clawing at her throat that this was not just a memory, but also that it was _real_. That if Traya didn’t get up soon, she never would again.

“Traya, please, you have to get up,” Cissie begged. “I know you can. This isn’t your life. There’s a lot more left to it. Come on. Get up, please.” She was shaking violently, as if she was Traya, as if she had just seen her family killed and was now running for her own life with no idea how to save it. “Come on. _Please!_ I won’t be able to get anywhere without your stupid bus schedule.”

Traya looked up suddenly, and for a second, Cissie thought she was looking at her. But the impression disappeared just as quickly as it came, and Cissie realized she was only looking _through_ her.

Traya got to her feet, slowly and with great difficulty, but she got up all the same.

“Come on,” said Cissie. “Come on. You can do it. Come on.”

Traya took a shaky breath and an even shakier step forward. Like that, she resumed her solemn trek through what was left of this town.

Greta shouted, “Secret!” which had nothing to do with anything but was the only way she had to get anybody’s attention. Cissie looked where Greta was pointing. In the distance were trucks—Hummers, maybe. Cissie couldn’t be sure from where she was, not with the setting sun glaring right in her eyes. She had no idea if the people driving them were Bialyan or foreign, if they were friend or foe—all she knew was that they were Traya’s only chance for survival.

“Over here!” she screamed, jumping up and down. Chances were they couldn’t see or hear her, the same as Traya, but if there was even a possibility they could, she wasn’t going to waste it.

Traya saw them too. She looked apprehensive, but Cissie recognized the expression on her face: she was puzzling it out, weighing the options and the possibilities.

With only the barest hint of hesitation, she ran towards whatever was in the distance. Cissie shielded her eyes against the sun, so unrelenting, and she could tell at this point Traya was going purely on adrenaline. She was going to make it to those trucks, whatever it took. She was going to live.

The glare from the sun was blinding. Cissie closed her eyes against it, and when she opened them again, it was gone, taking the sky and the desert with it.


	12. Unforgivable

Traya, no longer a tiny battered girl, was curled up in the corner, shaking. Cissie ran to her.

“Tray? Can you hear me?”

“Cissie?” Traya’s eyes were still rimmed with tears. “I saw… I was…”

“I know,” Cissie said. “I saw too. I’m… sorry.”

Traya shook her head. “Where are we now?”

“I don’t know.” She looked around. They were in somebody’s bedroom. The walls were pink, the floors hardwood. Stuffed animals were strewn about, posters hung here and there, a dollhouse placed neatly on a dresser near the canopy bed.

On the bed was Greta.

She had her headphones on and she was reading a magazine. She looked different—solid. Real. _Alive_. It took Cissie a minute to realize she was wearing the same clothes they were used to seeing her in, but without the white hoodie.

“Greta!” a voice called from somewhere else in the house. “Greta!”

“Greta’s memory now?” Cissie said. She was curious, but a part of her was afraid of what was coming next. She was almost sure that Greta couldn’t have anything as horrible in her past as Traya, but then she remembered Greta had been murdered.

“Greta?” A boy appeared in the doorway. He was tall and lanky, in his late teens, with long brown hair and green eyes. He smiled when he saw the girl on the bed. “Greta!”

Greta sat up, pulling off her headphones. “Yeah?” she asked.

“Come here. There’s something I want to show you,” the boy said, then turned and left the room.

With a shrug, Greta dropped her things on her bed and followed after him. Cissie helped Traya to her feet, relieved that at least they were solid to each other, and the two of them went along as well.

“Billy! Billy, where’d you go?” Greta called, pausing on her way down the stairs.

“Out back. Come on!”

Greta frowned, but she made her way through the house and out the back door, paying no attention to the two girls who were right behind her.

“This is a switch,” Cissie couldn’t help muttering.

The backyard was small but nice, a fence that needed a little repairing keeping the outside world at bay. There was a single tall tree in the yard, with more just outside, the foliage creating something of a barrier. If it were bigger and had more flowers, it would have been just like Cissie always imagined the secret garden.

The boy, Billy, was standing by the tree, fiddling with something in his hands.

“What’s up?” Greta asked, putting her hands on her hips.

Billy just grinned at her and crossed the backyard to stand beside her. He ruffled her hair affectionately. “Hey, who loves ya?”

“You better, you big lug,” Greta said, punching him playfully on the arm.

“That’s right. I do.” Then he plunged a dagger straight into her chest.

Cissie screamed as if she herself had just been stabbed. Traya held onto her arm and they stared in shock, unable to do a single thing as Greta fell to her knees.

“B…,” she tried to say, but she found herself choking on her own blood.

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” Billy said, removing the dagger. “But I’m not sorry. Goodbye, Greta.”

Greta collapsed completely. Whether she was dead yet or only unconscious, Cissie couldn’t tell. All she knew was that there was too much blood. If Greta wasn’t dead yet, she would be very, very soon.

“Cissie, look,” Traya choked, pointing.

Through the gap in the fence, they could just make out the broken neon sign of Abel’s House of Secrets across the street.

Cissie felt weak. She leaned against the door frame.

 _Two down_ , something in her mind that sounded strangely like Bonnie told her. _Who do you think that leaves?_

* * *

**MANHATTAN, NEW YORK  
DECEMBER 21, 15:58 EST**

But when her vision cleared, they were in what looked like the back room of an ordinary magic shop in Manhattan. Traya and Cissie were solid again, and Greta was a ghost. Her hands were clasped over the place where she’d been stabbed.

“Billy,” she said.

“I could say I’m surprised to see you here, but I’m not.”

Cissie recognized the throaty, accented voice immediately. “Miss Jeannette. We thought…”

“That I would be in Gateway City, hours away? Oh, Cissie. Just because it takes you ages to get from one place to the next doesn’t mean the same is true of everyone. Right, Greta?”

Greta said nothing.

Cissie moved to block Traya, training her bow on Miss Jeannette.

But Miss Jeannette just laughed. “I like your fire, Cissie. I think you’ve gotten the wrong impression of me. You thought I killed Greta, didn’t you? But now you know that’s not the case. The one who killed Greta was her brother. Don’t worry, he’s locked up now. Right?”

Hesitantly, Greta nodded.

“What do you want with us?” Cissie asked.

“Cissie, do you remember the night—I’m sure you do, it was only a few weeks ago. Your father was putting you to bed when he was attacked and almost killed. But he survived. He was saved.”

“By Green Arrow,” Cissie said. “And?”

“By Green Arrow and his sidekick,” Miss Jeannette said. “Did it never occur to you that perhaps I hoped to foster your skills the way he fosters hers?”

Cissie felt her arms starting to go slack. Was that all this was? Miss Jeannette wanted her for a… sidekick?

“So… are you some kind of superhero?” Cissie asked.

“Some kind… I suppose you could say that. I’m not ordinary. Neither are you.”

“I am ordinary,” said Cissie.

“No, you’re not. You have remarkable skills for a person of any age—even more remarkable for someone so young. Your mother may have honed it, but you were born with a gift.”

“Ms. Doi said innate talent only gets you so far.”

Miss Jeannette gave a small half-laugh. “Yes. That sounds like something she would say.”

“Is she… working with you? Is she on your side?”

“Shado? I’m not convinced that woman’s capable of being on anyone’s side but her own.” Miss Jeannette said this all as if she couldn’t have possibly cared less.

“If you just wanted to help me, why didn’t you say so?”

Miss Jeannette cocked her head. “Didn’t I, though? Didn’t I tell you that I would be willing to help you with anything? Lend you an ear when you needed to talk? Let your minor rule infractions slide? Go out of my way to help you catch up to your peers despite starting almost a full semester behind them?”

“Oh. I… guess you did do that. But… why…” Cissie was stuck. She didn’t know what to ask next. She felt foolish. She hated feeling foolish.

“I’ll try to explain what happened as best I can so you aren’t left with lingering questions where it can be avoided,” Miss Jeannette said sweetly. “You came to my attention about a month ago. Do you remember what happened about a month ago? Before the incident with your father and Green Arrow.”

Cissie tried to think. “I won that contest. At the fair.”

“Precisely. A young girl winning a simple archery contest at a little fair would have slipped my notice under normal circumstances, but you’re not just any young girl, are you? You’re Suzanne King-Jones. You have such a heroic lineage.”

“My dad’s a journalist,” Cissie said. “That’s nothing like archery.”

“I’m not talking about Bernell Jones.”

Cissie rolled her eyes. “My mother? A bronze medal has-been? Real heroic.”

“You don’t know what your mother did after she won that medal, do you? Nobody ever told you. I see…”

“What? Did she blow up Alderaan and kill Obi-Wan Kenobi?”

“Have you ever heard of Miss Arrowette?”

Cissie shook her head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“I’m not surprised, actually. Miss Arrowette was a D-list non-superhero who had a very short, very unremarkable career, the high point of which was that she caught the attention of a young playboy and billionaire named Oliver Queen.”

“Oliver Queen,” Traya repeated. “Green Arrow.”

“Yes, very good. Ollie’s always been a little too flamboyant for secret identities,” said Miss Jeannette. “Anyway, Miss Arrowette and Ollie had a bit of a _thing_ , as you kids say. Some people even suspect he fathered her only child, though she claims it was Bernell Jones, the man she married shortly after she was forced to retire from the business.”

Cissie let her arms drop to her side. “You’re saying Miss Arrowette…”

“Is better known to you as Bonnie King,” Miss Jeannette confirmed with a nod.

“And my father is…”

This time Miss Jeannette only shrugged. “That, I don’t know. Maybe it’s Bernell Jones. Maybe it’s Oliver Queen. Maybe it’s someone else entirely. You’ll have to ask Bonnie if you want to know the truth.”

Cissie’s heart was in her throat. She didn’t think she could speak even if she had anything to say.

“Biology doesn’t matter,” Traya said defiantly. “Cissie’s father is the man who raised her.”

The strength in Cissie’s arms slowly returned. Traya was right. She wanted to know the truth, but regardless of what it was, it wouldn’t change anything. Bernell Jones would always be her father.

“Why did,” she said, then stopped to clear her throat. “Why did you show us those memories? And why wasn’t… there one for me?”

“I wasn’t the one who showed you those,” Miss Jeannette said. She motioned to the building around them. “It’s this place. All right, I admit I have to take some of the blame. It’s unpredictable at best, but when I’m around it tends to focus on the same thing: the worst moment of a person’s life.”

Cissie could recall too vividly the terror and panic of Traya’s memory, the shock and pain of Greta’s.

“You didn’t see yours because the worst moment hasn’t happened to you yet. Be glad.”

Be _glad_? She looked at Traya and Greta, the worst behind them.

But they hadn’t been allowed childhoods. Traya had never known peace or innocence. Greta had had her life cut short entirely, by someone she trusted.

“Okay,” Cissie said, because it seemed like the best she could manage.

“I didn’t _mean_ for you to come here,” Miss Jeannette said. “But as soon as you asked to go to Manhattan, I knew this would be your destination. You see, this place serves as a… headquarters of sorts, for my colleagues and me.”

“A magic shop?” Traya said, unimpressed.

“The magic shop is just a front, dear. Surely you figured that out?”

Traya didn’t respond to that one.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more than that. All though I can promise you will learn more in the future if you take me up on my offer.”

Something told Cissie this was dangerous, but she couldn’t have said why. Miss Jeannette wasn’t threatening her. She wasn’t giving her an ultimatum. She’d been more forthcoming in the time Cissie had known her than Bonnie had been in her entire life.

Greta drifted back next to her. She whispered a single word: “Death.”

“Greta, dear, you have to get over your mistrust of me,” Miss Jeannette said, somewhat exasperated. “You know being around me makes you stronger. More _human_. Don’t you want that?”

Greta seemed hesitant, but she shook her head. “Banshee.”

Miss Jeannette sighed. “Very well. If that’s how you want it to be. Yes, I’m a banshee. It happened when I died. You know about that, don’t you, Cissie?”

Before their eyes, Miss Jeannette transformed like some kind of Sailor Moon villain. Her skin went white, whiter than Greta’s, her cheeks gaunt, her eyes black and hollow and dead.

When she wailed, an axe blade appeared and swung at Cissie’s head.


	13. Verge

**DECEMBER 21, 16:09 EST**

With reflexes honed through years of nonstop hard work, Cissie reacted immediately. She threw herself on top of Traya, knocking both of them to the floor. Traya had her eyes closed and her hands over her ears.

Cissie had to fight against succumbing to the power of the wail as well. She twisted around and fired. Miss Jeannette dodged the arrow easily, but the act interrupted her, which was Cissie’s main goal.

“I apologize for that demonstration, but you wanted it,” said Miss Jeannette, her voice sounding as hollow as her eyes. “I told you I wasn’t ordinary. During my slow, violent, agonizing death, I found the banshee. I _became_ the banshee. Greta’s death was relatively clean and painless compared to mine. Sure, she got stuck in some state between life and death—as what you’d call a ‘ghost’—but trust me. She’s had it easy. You really have, dear.”

“I gotta say, lady, you aren’t doing a great job of selling yourself,” Cissie said, nocking another arrow.

“I’m aware that my abilities can be very startling. I wanted to introduce you to them gradually, but Greta wouldn’t have it that way. We’re not that different, Greta and I. We’re both creatures who were once human, but are now something different, something _more_. We’re neither alive nor dead—can’t die because we already did once. We’re not immortal, but bullets, knives, poison, these things have no effect on us anymore. Why do you trust Greta and not me?”

“Because I’ve seen inside Greta’s heart,” said Cissie. “And _she_ doesn’t trust you. Also, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but you’re very, very scary-looking.”

“For shame, Cissie. I didn’t realize you were so shallow.”

“Yeah, well. You’ve never met my mother.”

“I just want to help you, Cissie. Help you be who you were meant to be. To realize your full potential.”

“Your colleagues,” said Cissie. “They wouldn’t happen to be the Justice League, would they?”

“I told you that I’m not at liberty to divulge details unless—”

“Right. Nice catch, that. One thing my mother taught me was to never sign anything without first reading the fine print. Sorry. My answer is no.”

“No,” Greta echoed.

“No!” Traya put in valiantly, then shrank back behind Cissie again.

“That’s unfortunate,” said Miss Jeannette. “I hate to destroy such potentially valuable tools as you, but what’s that old cliché? I’m afraid you know too much.”

Cissie didn’t wait for Miss Jeannette to wail this time. She fired her arrow straight at her heart. But Miss Jeannette’s reflexes were unbelievably fast; she snatched the arrow right out of the air, snapping it in two with one hand, then lunged at Cissie before Cissie could even react.

Miss Jeannette’s grip on her throat was inhumanly strong. “I told you normal weapons can’t hurt me. Don’t you pay attention, Cissie? _Aah!”_

Her gloating was cut off by a normal, very human shriek. Greta had given her hair a solid yank. Apparently that was still unpleasant even for banshees. The hand on Cissie’s throat went slack.

Trick arrows weren’t the easiest things to make or come by. Cissie knew she only had one shot.

She fired at the ceiling straight over Miss Jeannette’s head. When it struck something solid, the arrow immediately exploded, raining bits of matter down on them.

Miss Jeannette had made it very clear that something like a ceiling collapsing on her wouldn’t kill her, but Cissie was sure it had to slow her down a bit. Someone grabbed her arm roughly, and at first she was afraid it was Miss Jeannette, but then she turned and saw Traya. Her vision was remarkably clear for the chaos she had just created.

“Hurry, Greta can’t hold this for long,” Traya said, yanking her towards the door.

Cissie realized the only reason they hadn’t been buried along with Miss Jeannette was because Greta was floating above them, keeping them safe.

“You’re lucky some people think _and_ do,” Traya said.

Cissie didn’t want to go through any doors in the House of Secrets, but when Traya threw it open, she could see it only lead back into the store. They sprinted through it, Greta letting the ceiling in the back room give out entirely once they were clear.

They threw themselves out the front door and onto the street. Cissie’s eyes immediately went to the house across the street. The windows were blown out. It was clear no one was living there. But someone had once, a girl. And her brother. Maybe there had been parents too. Maybe they had even been happy once. But that was a long time ago, in another life.

Cissie felt drained, like she’d just gone through Bonnie’s annual summer boot camp. She wanted to fall down on the sidewalk and stay there until her father found her and carried her home to bed.

People had come out of the other houses and buildings nearby at the sound of the explosion. Cissie knew that by the time the police or whoever got there, Miss Jeannette would be long gone, and she and Traya had no explanations for what had happened.

But the police weren’t the first ones to arrive. Running down the street like they’d just leaped out of a television news report were Black Canary and Green Arrow.

Cissie wasn’t ready for this.

Traya stepped in front of her like she was preparing to intercept a bullet. “How did you get here so fast?”

“That’s not important,” said Black Canary as Green Arrow drew his bow and looked inside what was left of Abel’s House of Secrets. “What happened? What were you doing in that building?”

“Shopping for magic supplies,” said Traya, the _duh_ implicit.

“Armed?” Black Canary said, nodding at Cissie.

It was only then that Cissie realized her archery case had disappeared, along with their coats, after Traya’s memory. She couldn’t help being a little angry about this. She loved that case. And she was fond of the coat too. Not only that, but now that they were back outside, she was freezing again.

“How many were in there?” Black Canary pressed.

“Just one,” said Cissie. “Our headmistress. She was a banshee.” She figured it was better to lay their cards on the table. She was talking to a woman who could emit a sonic scream, after all.

“Are you ready to tell me what _really_ happened, then?”

Cissie nodded, her eyes flicking to Green Arrow, who had turned around to listen. “Yeah. I think so.”

* * *

**STAR CITY, MASSACHUSETTS  
DECEMBER 25, 17:18**

Miss Jeannette didn’t return to St. Elias, which was about as clear an admission of her having nothing whatsoever to do with the Justice League as the part when she’d attacked her students had been. Hildy Park was temporarily appointed to the position of headmistress for the last two days of the term. Unfortunately, the school would have to close completely over break while an investigation was conducted and a permanent replacement was found, which meant the few students who would normally stay would have to find somewhere else to go.

Fortunately, Bernell Jones was an accommodating man who was more than happy to have his daughter’s new friend stay with them during that time.

They ate Christmas dinner together: Bonnie, Bernell, Cissie, and Traya, and it wasn’t nearly as awkward or painful as it could have been, which Cissie thought was its own kind of holiday miracle.

Traya took a great interest in Bernell’s work as an investigative journalist, and the two had a deep conversation that was way over Cissie’s head. She got up to clear the plates once the turkey was finished.

Bonnie had already retreated to the kitchen to smoke a cigarette. “What’s the matter with you, kiddo? You’ve been weird ever since you got home. There wasn’t any funny business going on you haven’t told anyone about, was there?”

Cissie considered the different ways she could answer that question. She decided she didn’t like any of them. Instead she turned and faced her mother and said only two words: “Oliver Queen.”

Bonnie wasn’t surprised. In fact, she almost looked like she’d been expecting it. “I see. Okay. Let’s have this talk.”

Cissie nodded. It was overdue anyway.


End file.
